PRECARIOUS RIGHT. The right which the owner of a thing transfers to another, to enjoy the same until it shall please the owner to revoke it.

2. If there is a time fixed during which the right may be used it is then vested for that time, and cannot be revoked until after its expiration. Wolff, Inst. 833.

PRECARIUM. The name of a contract among civilians, by which the owner of a thing at the request of another person, gives him a thing to use as long as the owner shall please. Poth. h. t. n. 87. See Yelv. 172; Cro. Jac. 236; 9 Cowen, 687; Roll. R. 128; Bac. Ab. Bailment, c; Ersk. Prin. B. 3, t. 1, n. 9; Wolff, Ins. Nat. 333.

2. A tenancy at will is a right of this kind.

PRECATORY WORDS. Expressions in a will praying or requesting that a thing shall be done.

2. Although recommendatory words used by a testator, of themselves, seem to leave the devisee to act as he may deem proper, giving him a discretion, as when a testator gives an estate to a devisee, and adds that he hopes, recommends, has a confidence, wish or desire that the devisee shall do certain things for the benefit of another person; yet courts of equity have construed such precatory expressions as creating a trust. 18 Ves. 41; 8 Ves. 380; Bac. Ab. Legacies, B, Bouv. ed.

3. But this construction will not prevail when either the objects to be benefited are imperfectly described, or the amount of property to which the trust should attach, is not sufficiently defined . 1 Bro. C. C. 142; 1 Sim. 542, 556. See 2 Story, Eq. Jur. 1070; Lewin on Trusts, 77; 4 Bouv. Inst. n. 3953.

PRECEDENCE. The right of being first placed in a certain order, the first rank being supposed the most honorable.

2. In this country no precedence is given by law to men.

3. Nations, in their intercourse with each other, do not admit any precedence; hence in their treaties in one copy one is named first, and the other in the other. In some cases of officers when one must of necessity act as the chief, the oldest in commission will have precedence; as when the president of a court is not present, the associate who has the oldest commission will have a precedence; or if their. commissions bear the same date, then the oldest man.

4. In. the, army and navy there is an order of precedence which regulates the officers in their command.