21 OCTOBER 1876, Page 24

The Constitutional History of England. Vol. IL By William Stubbs,

M.A. (Clarendon Press.)--This second instalment of the Oxford Pro- fessor's work covers the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and in- cludes the kings from Henry III. to Richard IL The period is one of deep interest to every student. These centuries first saw the despotism of the Plantagenets curbed, and an element in the State develop° into a power, which was hereafter to exercise the first legislative functions. The introduction of the Third Estate into the great National Council of ecclesiastical and lay feudatories of the Crown, its segregation, and accretion of power under such kings as Edward I. and Ill., are traced by the historian with a minuteness and exhaustiveness that the subject has never yet received. The number of authorities and records that have been consulted, and are all recited in foot-notes, show that laborious as the task has been, it was a labour of love, while the impartiality and fullness of the statements, and the forcible inferences drawn from them, are such as we should expect from so conscientious a student and so philosophical an historian. The analysis of character and the judicial award of merit and blame of the chief actors is far-seeing and trenchant, and gives us in many cases quite a new light. The work is a boon to all students of history.