degree favorably for the litigants on either side; for it was certainly
both hereditary and elective within the bounds, which we have mentioned.
This order prevailed in Ireland, where the Northern customs were
retained some hundreds of years after the rest of Europe had in a great
measure receded from them. Tanistry continued in force there until the
beginning of the last century. And we have greatly to regret the narrow
notions of our lawyers, who abolished the authority of the Brehon law,
and at the same time kept no monuments of it,--which if they had done,
there is no doubt but many things of great value towards determining
many questions relative to the laws, antiquities, and manners of this
and other countries had been preserved. But it is clear, though it has
not been, I think, observed, that the ascending collateral branch was
much regarded amongst the ancient Germans, and even preferred to that of
the immediate possessor, as being, in case of an accident arriving to
the chief, the presumptive heir, and him on whom the hope of the family
was fixed: and this is upon the principles of Tanistry. And the rule
seems to have taken such deep root as to have much influenced a
considerable article of our feudal law: for, what is very singular, and,
I take it, otherwise unaccountable, a collateral warranty bound, even
without any descending assets, where the lineal did not, unless
something descended; and this subsisted invariably in the law until this
century.

Thus we have seen the foundation of the Northern government and the
orders of their people, which consisted of dependence and confederacy:
that the principal end of both was military; that protection and
maintenance were due on the part of the chief, obedience on that of the
follower; that the followers should be bound to each other as well as to
the chief; that this headship was not at first hereditary, but that it
continued in the blood by an order of its own, called Tanistry.