Book Review.

Mr. Hannis Taylor, of Mobile, Ala., has made one of the most important recent contributions to constitutional history, in the form of a treatise on the Origin and Growth of the English Constitution, in which is drawn out, by the light of the most recent researches, the gradual development of the English constitutional system and the growth out of that system of the federal republic of the United States. Mr. Taylor is a writer of the school of Freeman and Fiske, who find in constitutional history a gradual evolution of the principles of government. To students of American history the introductory chapter on the English origin of the federal republic of the United States will be of the greatest value. This aspect of our history has been but scantily treated hitherto. The first volume is further divided into three books treating first, of the old English commonwealth, secondly, the Norman conquest, and thirdly, the growth and decline of parliament. The gradual evolution of the whole subject is shown in a most interesting and scholarly manner. The bibliographical foot-notes are very complete and show a liberal and careful use of the best authorities, though the author has undertaken but little research among the original documents. The second volume, now in preparation, will be termed "The After-growth of the Constitution."

[Origin and Growth of the English Constitution. By Hannis Taylor. In two parts. Part 1. The Making of the Constitution. Boston and New York. Houghton, Mifflin and Co. 1889. pp. 616. Price $4.50.]