the estate of the king and people shall be treated, accorded, and established in Parliaments by the king and by the assent of the prelates, earls, barons, and commonalty of the realm, according as it hath been hitherto accustomed.

The growth of the right of the commons may be traced in the forms of the writs in those of John, the knights of the shire are summoned simply 'ad loquendum;' those of Simon de Montfort describe them as 'tractaturi et consilium impensuri ;' ad tractandum as well as ad consulendum et consentiendum being the form of summons usual in the case of a Great Council. Edward I, in 1283, summons the representatives of the towns ad audiendum et faciendum; in 1294, he summons the knights of the shire ad consulendum et consentiendum pro se et communitate illa, iis quae comites, barones, et proceres praedicti ordinaverint; with which agrees the fact, that in 1290 they were not assembled until the legislative part of the work of the parliament had been transacted. From the year 1295, however, the form is ad faciendum;' under Edward II it becomes 'ad consentiendum et faciendum,' to assent and enact. From this time, then, the commons were admitted to a share of the character of the Sapientes which in this respect the bishops and barons had engrossed since the Conquest, and the king was enabled to state with truth to the pope, that the custom of England was, that in business affecting the state of the kingdom the counsel of all whom the matter touched should be required. The corresponding variations in the praemunientes clause summoning the clergy are:-in 1295, 'ad tractandum, ordinandum et faciendum;' in 1299, 'ad faciendum et consentiendum ;' from 1381, only ad consentiendum,' a function adequately discharged by absence.

2. The share of the commons in taxation takes precedence of their share in legislation. The power of voting money was more

necessary than that of giving counsel. Of this power, as it

existed up to the date of Magna Carta, enough has been said. The witenagemot, and its successor the royal council of barons, could impose the old national taxes; the ordinary feudal exactions were matters of common law and custom, and the amount

E

of them was limited by usage. But the extraordinary aids which Henry II and his sons substituted for the Danegeld, and the taxes on the demesne lands of the crown, were arbitrary in amount and incidence; the former clearly requiring, and the latter, on all moral grounds, not less demanding, an act of consent on the part of the payers. This right was early recognized; even John, as we have seen, asked his barons sometimes for grants, and treated with the demesne lands and towns through the Exchequer, with the clergy through the bishops and archdeacons. Magna Carta enunciates the principle that the payers shall be called to the common council to vote the aids which had been previously negotiated separately; but the clause was never confirmed by Henry III, nor was it applicable to the talliaging of demesne. It is as the towns begin to increase, and at the same time taxation ceases to be based solely on land and begins to affect personal as well as real property, that the difficulties of the king and the hardships of the estates liable to talliage become important. The steps by which the king was compelled to give up the right of taking talliages without a parliamentary grant, are the same as those which led to the confirmation of the charters. It was finally surrendered in the clause then conceded in addition to the charter, and known as the Act De Tallagio non concedendo. And this completed the taxative powers of parliament. The further steps of development, the determination of the different proportions in which the various branches of the three estates voted their supplies, and the final engrossing of the taxing power by the House of Commons, the struggles by which the grants were made to depend on the redress of grievances, and the determination of the disposal of supplies assumed by the parliament, belong to later history.

We have thus brought our sketch of Constitutional History to the point of time at which the nation may be regarded as reaching its full stature. It has not yet learned its strength, nor accustomed itself to economize its power. Its first vagaries are those of a people grown up, but not disciplined. To trace the process by which it learned the full strength of its organism -by which it learned to use its powers and forces with dis

crimination and effect-to act easily, effectually, and economically, or, to use another metaphor, to trace the gradual wear of the various parts of the machinery, until all roughnesses were smoothed, and all that was superfluous, entangling, and confusing was got rid of, and the balance of forces adjusted, and action made manageable and intelligible, and the power of adaptation to change of circumstances fully realized,—is the story of later politics, of a process that is still going on, and must go on as the age advances, and men are educated into wider views of government, national unity, and political responsibility. We stop, however, with Edward I, because the machinery is now completed, the people are at full growth. The system is raw and untrained and awkward, but it is complete. The attaining of this point is to be attributed to the defining genius, the political wisdom, and the honesty of Edward I, building on the immemorial foundation of national custom; fitting together all that Henry I had planned, Henry II organized, and the heroes of the thirteenth century had inspired with fresh life and energy.

PART II.

EXTRACTS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE EARLY

POLITY OF THE ENGLISH.

EXTRACTS FROM CAESAR.

THE account of the Germans given by Caesar, and drawn by him more from the reports of their neighbours than from his own knowledge of them, must not be regarded as more than a partial glimpse of a small portion of the great family under special circumstances. It would, then, be wrong to look on it as a picture of an earlier phase of the life of the people who are a century later described in detail by Tacitus, or to infer from the difference of the pictures that the intervening period witnessed the transition from one condition to the other. The features remarked on by Caesar-the perpetual state of war, the neglect of agriculture for pastoral pursuits and hunting, the annual migrations of tribes-are, it is true, commonly viewed as characteristic of the first steps out of barbarism into civilization; but the first two are extremely liable to exaggeration by rumour, and the prominence of the whole three in this description is owing to the generally unsettled state of all tribes bordering on the Roman conquests... It would be unsafe to regard any point in which the report of Caesar is not confirmed by Tacitus as certainly characteristic of the life of the Germans at home. Its interest depends chiefly on the fact, that it is the first attempt at an account of the life of our forefathers, and that it comes from the pen of one of the greatest statesmen that ever lived.

C. JUL. CAESARIS, Comm. de Bello Gallico, VI. 21. Germani multum ab hac (sc. Gallorum) consuetudine differunt, nam neque Druides habent, qui rebus divinis praesint, neque sacri

ficiis student. Deorum numero eos solos ducunt, quos cernunt et quorum opibus aperte juvantur, Solem et Vulcanum et Lunam; reliquos ne fama quidem acceperunt. Vita omnis in venationibus atque in studiis rei militaris consistit; ab parvulis labori ac duritiei student.

Ib. c. 22. Agriculturae non student; majorque pars victus // eorum lacte et caseo et carne consistit; neque quisquam agri modum certum aut fines proprios habet; sed magistratus ac principes in annos singulos gentibus cognationibusque hominum, qui una coierunt, quantum eis et quo loco visum est, attribuunt agri; atque anno post alio transire cogunt. Ejus rei multas afferunt caussas, ne assidua consuetudine capti studium belli gerendi agricultura commutent; ne latos fines parare studeant, potentioresque humiliores possessionibus expellant, ne accuratius ad frigora atque aestus vitandos aedificent; ne qua oriatur pecuniae cupiditas, qua ex re factiones dissensionesque nascuntur: ut animi aequitate plebem contineant, cum suas quisque opes cum potentissimis aequari videat.

Ib. c. 23. Civitatibus maxima laus est, quam latissimas circum se vastatis finibus solitudines habere. Hoc proprium virtutis existimant, expulsos agris finitimos cedere, neque quemquam prope se audere consistere: simul hoc se fore tutiores arbitrantur, repentinae incursionis timore sublato. Cum bellum civitas aut illatum defendit aut infert, magistratus qui ei bello praesint, ut vitae necisque habeant potestatem, deliguntur. In pace nullus communis est magistratus, sed principes regionum atque pagorum inter suos jus dicunt, controversiasque minuunt. Latrocinia nullam habent infamiam, quae extra fines cujusque civitatis fiunt: atque ea juventutis exercendae ac desidiae minuendae caussa fieri praedicant. Atque ubi quis ex principibus in concilio se dixit ducem fore, ut qui sequi velint, profiteantur, consurgunt ii qui et caussam et hominem probant, suumque auxilium pollicentur, atque ab multitudine collaudantur; qui ex iis secuti non sunt in desertorum ac proditorum numero ducuntur; omniumque rerum iis postea fides abrogatur. Hos->› pites violare fas non putant; qui quaque de caussa ad eos venerunt, ab injuria prohibent, sanctosque habent: iis omnium domus patent, victusque communicatur.

Lib. IV. c. I. Suevorum gens est longe maxima et bellicosissima Germanorum omnium: ii centum pagos habere dicuntur ex quibus quotannis singula millia armatorum, bellandi caussa, suis ex finibus educunt; reliqui domi manent, pro se atque illis colunt. Hi rursus invicem anno post in armis sunt, illi domi remanent. Sic neque agricultura, neque ratio neque usus belli