nd are all hospitals for the maintenance of the
poor, sick, and impotent; and all colleges, both _in_ our universities
and _out_[e] of them: which colleges are founded for two purposes; 1.
For the promotion of piety and learning by proper regulations and
ordinances. 2. For imparting assistance to the members of those
bodies, in order to enable them to prosecute their devotion and
studies with greater ease and assiduity. And all these eleemosynary
corporations are, strictly speaking, lay and not ecclesiastical, even
though composed of ecclesiastical persons[f], and although they in
some things partake of the nature, privileges, and restrictions of
ecclesiastical bodies.

[Footnote e: Such as at Manchester, Eton, Winchester, &c.]

[Footnote f: 1 Lord Raym. 6.]

HAVING thus marshalled the several species of corporations, let us
next proceed to consider, 1. How corporations, in general, may be
created. 2. What are their powers, capacities, and incapacities. 3.
How corporations are visited. And 4. How they may be dissolved.

I. CORPORATIONS, by the civil law, seem to have been created by the
mere act, and voluntary association of their members; provided such
convention was not contrary to law, for then it was _illicitum
collegium_[g]. It does not appear that the prince's consent was
necessary to be actually given to the foundation of them; but merely
that the original founders of these voluntary and friendly societies
(for they were little more than such) should not establish any
meetings in opposition to the laws of the state.

[Footnote g: _Ff._ 47. 22. 1. _Neque societas, neque collegium, neque
hujusmodi corpus passim omnibus habere conceditur; nam et legibus, et
senatus consultis, et principalibus constitutionibus ea res
coercetur._ _Ff._ 3. 4. 1.]

BUT, with us in England, the king's consent is absolutely necessary to
the erection of any corporation, either impliedly or expressly given.
The king's implied consent is to be found in corporations which exist
by force of the _common law_, to which our former kings are supposed
to have given their concurrence; common law being nothing else but
custom, arising from the universal agreement of the whole community.
Of this sort are the king himself, all bishops, parsons, vicars,
churchwardens, and some others; who by common law have ever been held
(as far as our books can shew us) to have been corporations, _virtute
officii_: and this incorporation is so inseparably annex