LEGACY

SeeWitLS. (Lat. lego, I bequeath.) A gift by will of personal property, as goods and chattels; a testamentary gift of real property being called a devise. Legacies are general, such as a gift of a sum of money out of the general estate of the deceased; or specific, as a gift of a particular b^nk note or coin, or of any other individual chattel, as a horse or a jewel; or residuary, as a gift of the residue of the estate remaining after all the debts of the deceased and general and specific legacies have been satisfied. General legacies are subject to an equal rateable abatement, if the estate is not sufficient for payment of them in full; but a specific legacy is not subject to abatement, unle it be nece ary for the payment of debts. A specific legacy is, however, subject to what is called ademption, which is the consequence of the subject matter of the legacy being one identical thing in specie: thus, if a testator bequeath a particular horse, which he afterwards disposes of in his lifetime, the legacy is said to be adeemed, or taken away, because the horse bequeathed has no longer any existence as part of his property, and the legatee will not be entitled to another horse of the testator's in lieu of it. This identity of corpus is so inherent in the notion of a specific legacy, that if a 100/. in Consols were bequeathed, and the same sum were afterwards transferred by the testator to another stock, the transfer of itself would adeem the legacy. The mode of compelling executors to pay a legacy is by suit in equity for the administration of the testator's a ets: courts of law have not, in general, any jurisdiction over such mat  [s. 663]