to Messrs. LONGMANS & Co., for their kind permission to use and condense, where occasion required, various articles from "Tomlin's Popular Law Dictionary." As Mr. Tomlin's work has not been revised for some years, it has been necessary, in some cases, to extend his information to the present time.

The other works which the author has been indebted to in the compilation of this volume will be found in the List of Authorities. Those works in the list which appear printed in italics have been freely used.

THE TEMPLE,

June, 1867.

LIST OF AUTHORITIES.

AN ESSAY

ON THE

RISE AND PROGRESS OF THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION.

By the term Constitution, as applied to our national system of polity, we understand, first, the three estates of the realm, namely, the King, the Lords, and the Commons; and secondly, the fundamental laws, ordinances, and customs by which these estates are severally and collectively bound and governed, and by which their peculiar and distinctive rights, privileges, functions, and prerogatives are duly set forth and determined. No single document, however, exists in which the principles of the Constitution are fully embodied and defined—a circumstance which has sometimes given rise to the popular but erroneous impression that we have no "constitution" in the proper sense of the term; or that, if we have, its principles are so vague, and its provisions so incongruous and disjointed, that they virtually elude our grasp in endeavouring to apprehend them.

The Constitution, as it is presented to us in the pages of history, is made up of detached fragments, having no very obvious properties of cohesion or unity; and as it is a structure which has been raised by successive generations, extending over a period of several centuries, it may lack in a measure that

B

unity of design which, under different circumstances, it might have possessed. We can scarcely say with certainty when our Constitution may be said to have commenced, but it probably had its origin in the common law or common custom of the realm, based upon immemorial usage. Its first faint outlines may be traced in some measure to the time of our AngloSaxon ancestors, amongst whose ancient laws and institutions we find the prototype of what subsequently became moulded into shape as the "English Constitution" properly so called. The progress of the Constitution, from its cradle downwards, has undoubtedly been fitful rather than regular in its pace. There have been periods of retrogression in its history, when the principles on which it is based were virtually ignored; but then at certain epochs, after long intervals of inactivity, it would seem to have gathered up its strength and to have made secure and rapid strides onward towards the goal of its destiny. Throughout all the vicissitudes, however, to which it has been exposed, the fundamental principles of the English Constitution have never been entirely subverted. On the contrary, one of its most distinctive features has been its elasticity and its power of adapting itself to the progressive requirements of civilisation without prejudice to its component parts, whether separately or collectively considered. It has undergone various modifications from its commencement to the present time, and is perhaps rather practically efficient than logically perfect in its essential characteristics; for it is the work of statesmen rather than of speculative theorists. In short, the English Constitution is the result of the cumulative labours of all the eminent statesmen, jurists, and legislators whom our country has produced for the last six hundred years. Having made these prefatory remarks, let us briefly advert to the AngloSaxon form of government which had been in existence, in a more or less modified form, for several centuries before the Conquest.