THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION BY Gaston ÉMILE BOUTMY, 1835 1906 TRANSLATED BY ISABEL M. EADEN WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK, BART., M.A. PROFESSOR OF JURISPRUDENCE, OXFORD London MACMILLAN AND CO. AND NEW YORK 1891 All Rights Reserved INTRODUCTION It gives me much pleasure to see my friend M. Boutmy's work offered to English readers in a trustworthy form. I have not thought it necessary to examine the translation with minute care, but I have seen enough of it to rejoice that the author has been so fortunate in his translator. It is anything but an easy matter to turn good French into good English; in this case the task has been performed with excellent skill and judgment, and with close fidelity to the original. The book seems to me to deserve a welcome in England on two distinct grounds. First, if we take it as a concise view of the development of the English Constitution on the social and economic side, it fills a place that is not to my knowledge exactly filled by any of our own books. And this alone might suffice to recommend it. But another quality may well give it a positive value, not only for students, but for masters in history and political science. We have here the frank and lucid record of the impression made by the peculiar 368357 |