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with costs, should be reversed: and it was further ordered, that the said estate should be sold before the Master, for the best price that could be got for the same, in which sale all proper parties were to join; and that out of the money arising by sale of the said estate, what should be found due to the respondent Nightingale, should be paid in the first place; and that the residue of the money arising by such sale, and the rents and profits, in the mean time, should be applied according to the directions of the decree; and if there should be any surplus, one moiety thereof should be paid to the respondent Bromsall Throckmorton, and the other moiety to the respondent Catharine Haseldine: and it was further ordered and adjudged, that the decree, with these variations, should be affirmed: and that the Court of Chancery should give proper directions for carrying the same into execution, and that the respondent Nightingale should have £20 paid him for his costs, and also the money reported due to him. (Jour. vol. 24. p. 471.)

Arthur Humphrey, gent. the respondent's former husband, was in his lifetime entitled to a very valuable interest in the lands of Gortern and Ballybrien, in the county of Galway, containing 300 acres, by virtue of a lease for three lives from Frederick French, esq. He died in the year 1740, leaving the respondent his widow and several children, whose principal subsistence was to arise from the profits of this lease; and at the time of his death, he owed Mr. French, for rent, £119 18s. 9d. for which arrear Mr. French threatened to bring an ejectment against the respondent. Upon which occasion, in May 1740, she applied to the appellant, who was then considered as a very wealthy man, and proposed to grant him a lease of part of the lands at a low rent, if he would pay off the arrear, to which proposal the appellant readily agreed; and accordingly, the respondent executed a lease of 180 acres, part of the said lands, to the appellant, at the yearly rent of 6s. 4d. by the acre, although they were then worth considerably more; and assigned to him the original lease, as a security for the money which he was to advance without interest.

In 1741, the appellant came to the respondent's house, and solicited her in marriage; and to induce her to comply, proposed to give up his mortgage of the said lease; and accordingly, on the 1st of September 1741, the appellant executed a writing, directed to his son Charles Lambert, in the words following:

I do hereby order, that the lease of Gorteran, assigned to me by the widow Catherine Humphrey, as a security for what money I paid that was due on the said farm, may be given to her without any demand to it. September 1st, 1741. Walter Lambert.—To my son Charles Lambert.—The above lease is in the upper drawer.

Things remained in this situation till the year 1743, when a marriage was agreed on between the appellant and the respondent, and articles were duly executed, dated the 22d of September 1743, whereby the appellant covenanted, that the respondent should have a provision of £20 a year, and should be acquitted from the said sum of £119 18s. 9d. in case any part thereof should remain due at the appellant's death; which provision was to be in full satisfaction of all dower, thirds, or jointure.

Soon after the execution of these articles, the appellant and respondent inter-married; and from the time of their marriage, for a long series of years, lived together as man and wife in perfect [19] harmony and affection. And the appellant (who for many years had been afflicted with disorders and infirmities) many times expressed his acknowledgments and sense of the respondent's great tenderness and affection for him, and of her care in the preservation of his substance; and often declared he