CONSTITUTIONAL PROGRESS. SEVEN LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, BY MONTAGU BURROWS, M.A., CHICHELE PROFESSOR OF MODERN HISTORY. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1869. The right of Translation is reserved. 223.j.353 PREFACE. THE following Lectures were prepared, in successive years, chiefly for Students in the Honours School of Law and Modern History. Most of them are attempts. to give a compendious view of large subjects, which could not be treated as a whole in a Course of Terminal Lectures extending over only short historical periods. The popular form in which they were therefore necessarily cast has suggested to some who heard them that they might be found acceptable beyond the University. If the Lectures are thought to touch too closely, or, at any rate, more than is usual from a Professorial Chair, on matters of present interest, it must be remembered that the nature of the subjects, living subjects as they are and pressing on the attention of every one, made it quite impossible to avoid all reference to modern events. It is hoped that such matters may not be found to have been treated in any unfair or controversial spirit. The Constitution of this Country is simply spoken of as it is, not as it might or ought to be. To regard with respect the system under which our Nation has become great and happy will not, it |