SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
[Under this heading we 'notice such Books of the wok as have not keen reserved for review in other forms.] Select Documents of Eng:ish Constitutional History. Edited by George Burton Adams and H. Morse Stephens. (Macmillan and Co. 10s. net.)—This selection of documents differs, from those that have been already offered to the student of . history in com- prehending a longer period and a greater range of subjects.. It begins with the Conquest, or rather, we might say, with the Domesday Survey, and it goes down to the "Third Redistri- bution of Parliamentary Seats," a period of almoet exactly eight hundred years. All the documents are rendered into modern English. How interesting and useful such a volume will be may be seen clearly enough from even the most casual choice among its contents. We may name "Typical Domesday Entries," "The Constitutions of Clarendon," "Magna Charta," the" Statute of Labourers" (Edward IIL ), "Do Haeretico Comburendo," "Act of Supremacy,' "Six Articles Act," "Revival of the Heresy Acts" (Queen Mary)—a difficult fact for apologists who Bay that Mary was not more inclined to persecute them than other Sovereigns— the "Solemn League and Covenant," "Bill of Rights," "Riot Act," "Abolition of Negro Slave Trade," "Catholic Emancipa- tion." But every page furnishes an illustration of history. The "Act of Union with Ireland" may be briefly referred to. How any one can argue that Art. IV., regulating the representation in Parliament, is -sacrosanct, while Art. V, declaring that the con- tinuance and preservation of the said United Church of England and Ireland shall be deemed and taken to be an ess-ntua and fundamental part of the Union, has disappeared, passes our under- standing.
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