The covenant in the lease giving the right or option to purchase the premises was in the nature of a continuing offer to sell. It was a proposition extending through the period of ten years, and being under seal must be regarded as made upon a sufficient consideration, and, therefore, one from which the defendant was not at liberty to recede. When accepted by the complainant by his notice to the defendant, a contract of sale between the parties was completed. This contract is plain and certain in its terms, and in its nature and in the circumstances attending its execution appears to be free from objection. The price stipulated for the property was a fair one. At the time its market value was under fifteen thousand dollars, and a greater increase than one-half in value during the period of ten years could not then have been reasonably anticipated.
When a contract is of this character it is the usual practice of courts of equity to enforce its specific execution upon the application of the party who has complied with its stipulations on his part, or has seasonably and in good faith offered, and continues ready to comply with them. But it is not the invariable practice. This form of relief is not a matter of absolute right to either party; it is a matter resting in the discretion of the court, to be exercised upon a consideration of all the circumstances of each particular case. The jurisdiction, said Lord Erskine, 'is not compulsory upon the court, but the subject of discretion. The question is not what the court must do, but what it may do under [the] circumstances, either exercising the jurisdiction by granting the specific performance or abstaining from it.'
And long previous to him Lord Hardwicke and other eminent equity judges of England had, in a great variety of cases, asserted the same discretionary power of the court. In Joynes v. Statham, Lord Hardwicke said: 'The constant doctrine of this court is, that it is in their discretion, whether in such a bill they will decree a specific performance or leave the plaintiff to his remedy at law.' And in Underwood v. Hitchcox the same great judge said, in refusing to enforce a contract: 'The rule of equity in carrying agreements into specific performance is well known, and the court is not obliged to decree every agreement entered into, though for valuable consideration, in strictness of law, it depending on the circumstances.'
Later jurists, both in England and in the United States, have reiterated the same doctrine. Chancellor Kent, in Seymour v. Delancy, upon an extended review of the authorities on the subject, declares it to be a settled principle that a specific performance of a contract of sale is not a matter of course, but rests entirely in the discretion of the court upon a view of all the circumstances; and Chancellor Bates, of Delaware, in Godwin v. Collins, recently decided, upon a very full consideration of the adjudged cases, says, that a patient examination of the whole course of decisions on this subject has left with him 'no doubt that, as a matter of judicial history, such a discretion has always been exercised in administering this branch of equity juriprudence.'
It is true the cases cited, in which the discretion of the court is asserted, arose upon contracts in which there existed some inequality or unfairness in the terms, by reason of which injustice would have followed a specific performance. But the same discretion is exercised where the contract if fair in its terms, if the enforcement, from subsequent events, or even from collateral circumstances, would work hardship or injustice to either of the parties.