When I was reading for my degree at Oxford, I thought that the ‘Politics’ of Aristotle would be likely to interest me more than his ‘Rhetoric,’ which was then usually taken into the Schools with the inevitable and sacramental ‘Ethics.’ Few people read it in those days, and my desire to take it up was treated rather as a harmless eccentricity, in the spirit of the words ‘Tiens, tu aimes ton mari; c'est bizarre, pourtant ce n'est pas défendu.’ This was in the year 1850, and I never returned to my old subject of study, after passing my examination, until, a few months ago, it occurred to me to read the book once again, and to see how it struck me after many years passed in politics and administration.

There is an advantage in dealing with such a subject as this, which may counterbalance the disadvantages under which a writer labours who ventures to bring forward ‘common saws and modern instances,’ in place of that serious investigation of obscure historical facts, or that review of the social questions of the past, which have honourably distinguished the last few years of the Society's labours. On such a familiar topic a brief treatment of a large matter is possible. There is no need to quote many examples, or passages at length, when the mere mention of the name of a character will commonly recall at once how he and his actions have been presented upon the stage by Shakespeare:

I only speak right on; I tell you that which you yourselves do know.

In the history of a nation no little importance attaches to the study of the development of its administration, the means with which the social organism provides itself in order to express its will in acts, and to be able to do so with the fairest possible distribution among its members of the strain which action involves. The general course of such development may perhaps be described as the gradual substitution of definite rules for indefinite impulses, of law for equity, of constitutional acts for royal behests. Routine is ever growing and spreading, and becoming more rational as it grows. The rules, at first, are few and simple, but only meet the commonest emergencies, and, however developed the system, the unforeseen is always arising, the hard cases which make good law in the end find new law made to meet them. Everywhere we begin with a person and end with a department.

Our own constitutional history has been studied, and is still being studied, with all the thoroughness and patient care demanded by so great a subject. On the other hand, the early constitutional history of our colonies has attracted less attention than it deserves. Probably this is because the shadow of a great failure hangs over it; if alluded to at all, it is only to point a moral at the folly which lost the American colonies. And yet a system which, with all its shortcomings, played so large a part in preparing the way for the constitution of the United States, and for our own colonial empire as it at present exists, is certainly worthy of investigation. English colonial government may be said to have been founded in the American colonies, but not to have attained its full development, if it has yet done so, until after their separation. It is, therefore, not surprising that such attention as the subject has recently received should have been devoted to it by American rather than by English writers. I propose to-day to deal with the early forms of government established in the colonies, and to point out how some of them, as in Massachusetts, were calculated from the outset to make for separation, while others, as in Virginia, lent themselves readily to maintaining the connection with the mother country, and are still used in our existing colonies.

Practical and theoretical geography were at a low ebb between the conversion of the Empire and the Crusades; but they had in themselves great possibilities. The time of sowing must not disappoint us if it fail to give a crop: in the age of the making of the modern nations we cannot expect the discovering instinct to show much activity. But if we wish to gain a proper understanding of the development of European Christendom upon the surface of the earth, we must begin with the origins. And these we find, as far as are necessary for our purpose, in the pilgrim-travellers and convent-maps and religious science of the centuries between Constantine and our own English Alfred.

The latest work from the pen of Sir J. R. Seeley, just published, contains, as the last legacy of an author who has rendered such good service to learning, a suggestion surpassing the limits of the subject of which he treats. In speaking of the growth of British policy, Seeley also proceeds to treat of the foreign relations of a state from the standpoint of their development, and in giving the history of this growth teaches us to observe and to reproduce the conditions of such a development. At the same time special stress is laid upon the point that the policy of a state is not to be considered by itself, but that the reciprocal action of states upon one another must be followed out. The history of policy is to Seeley synonymous with international history. It cannot be said that this conception is altogether new, since there is no lack, especially in English literature, of works which have adopted it; but, on the other hand, it is doubtful whether this manner of treating of foreign policy, which cannot pay sufficient regard to its connection with the internal policy of every separate state, will always be advisable.

The reign of Richard II. is a landmark in the political and constitutional history of England, and in the history of her church and people. At home it was an era of corrupt party politics which led to the crisis of 1399; abroad, there was a lull in the great French war; and already the victories of Edward III. and the Black Prince had initiated the course of events which were to make England an insular power, and her government a limited monarchy. Social and religious discontent joined hands in Wat Tyler's revolt, when the causes of Labour and Nonconformity made their first loud claim to the right of existence in England. In the following pages, however, we are concerned less with the history of the reign as a whole, than with the interesting personality of the boy-King. King and kingdom were closely bound up with one another in the Plantagenet epoch; and the unequal and ill-regulated character of Richard II. has left no uncertain impress upon the events of his reign. And here the historical student is brought face to face with the unsatisfactory condition of the original authorities. The whole reign abounds in political mysteries, and the figure of the young King is shrouded in obscurity.