Mackiniioii : The History of Edzvard the Third 125 and profit. We have in this connection, first, the Development of the Assembly; then the Composition and Functions of that body ; following which we have a like treatment of the Council, and other matters of in- terest pertaining to that branch of the palatinate. The fifth and sixth chapters are, for us, the best in the book. The fifth chapter opens indeed, like the book itself, with a vain thing, a too serious delay over the Development of the Judiciary from 635 until 1 1 95 ; at which latter date, or a little before, under the reforms of Henry the Second, the subject really begins. From that time on the author easily carries the interested reader through a long category of courts, until he reaches the pie-powder tribunals — of which no more. The Transition from a Feudal to a Royal Court is well told. The sixth chapter treats of the Palatine Courts in relation to the Royal Judiciary, and leaves nothing to be desired ; a surprise to a lawyer, because the author himself does not profess to be a man of law. Here will be found all the details of judicial procedure, much of it extremely technical, and all of it, so far as we have observed, accurate. It is curious, by the way, that the author missed the chance, on page 218, of remarks on foreign attachment. "It is ques- tionable," says Dr. Lapsley, " whether the bishop could have been put to exigent or outlawed on such proceedings," proceedings in the nature of foreign attachment. Could a citizen of Massachusetts be proceeded against personally, on attachment of lands of his in New York, without service of process on him ? Chapter VI. closes with some useful remarks in regard to the Council of the North and the Palatine Judiciary, a sub- ject of which the author has since shown himself a master. Here the author accordingly deals with what theologians, in another way, call last things. He is speaking of a plea of land in the palatinate drawn in 1547 into the (royal) Council, and closes with a passage which we must quote. "This tells the whole story. In the administration of law the palatinate has become a negligible quantity. It is not destroyed or swept away ; that would have been inconsistent with the genius of the English race, which is before all things conservative of appearances ; but the life that was in it has gone. . . . The living organism with which we were con- cerned has become a heap of dry bones. ' ' The final chapters deal with Financial, and Military and Naval, Ar- rangements in the Palatinate. Several appendices of considerable value follow, the last one a full bibliography. We have read this book with genuine satisfaction. The Torrey Fund, which is responsible for the publication of it, has borne no better fruit. Melville Madison Bigelow. The History of Edn'ard the 77«';v/ (1327-1377). By James Mac- Kinnon, Ph.D. (London, New York and Bombay: Longmans. Green and Co. 1900. Pp. xx, 624.) Dr. MacKinnon's book is based on laborious and independent in- vestigation of sources. No phase of the reign is entirely neglected, but
