618 ADDISON 9. BOWIE.

documents by which it was accompanied, were severally marked
filed as of the 7th of May, 1830, and the case was thereupon
again submitted.

10th July, 1830.—BLAND, Chancellor.--This case standing
ready for hearing, and the solicitors of the parties having been
fully heard, the proceedings were read and considered.

The difficulties here presented arise from the different construc-
tions given by the parties to two wills under which they claim.
The first of them is that of the late Baruck Duckett, and the mat-
ter, as to it, turns upon what shall be considered as the true mean-
ing of four of its clauses, the first of which is in these words :

'I give and devise to my son-in-law, William Bowie, of Walter,
the plantation whereon I now dwell, likewise the lands called the
Jeremiah and Mary, and the resurvey on the Jeremiah and Mary,
and ten acres of the land purchased of Henry L. Hall, to be laid
off at the north end, during his natural life only. In case the said
Bowie should die before his wife Kitty, she has hereby a right to
remain on, to occupy and enjoy all the aforesaid lands during her
natural life. If either the aforesaid .Bowie or his wife Kitty, should
cut down, or suffer to be cut down the enclosed woods below my
dwelling-house, for cultivation, their title to cease and be void for
ever. I hereby authorize the said Bowie to designate any one or
more of his children by his wife Kitty, who shall have the fee sim-
ple in all the aforesaid lands : my will being, that the fee should
pass to all or any one of them in the discretion of their father;
creating this uncertainty of designation merely as a motive to good
conduct in them all.'

With regard to this clause it is sufficiently clear, that William
had an estate for life given to him, with remainder of an interest
for life to his then wife Kitty, in case she should survive him. The
power given to the devisee William to designate which of his
children should take after himself and their mother, cannot, it is
true, be considered as enlarging his estate in any respect whatever.
It is a mere power to specify the course which the fee simple should
take after his death, and nothing more. But then, when contem-
plated with reference to the persons among whom the selection
was to be made, it is as to them, almost the same as if the holder
of the power had been actually vested with an absolute estate in
fee simple; because, as to each of those persons, the power, in
the full scope of its exercise, ranges without control from nothing
to the whole. And it is allowed to be arbitrarily exercised, be-