-----
I have pointed out in the introductory chapter my reasons for not going further than the reign of Edward I. The later history is rather a history of politics than of polity, and has to be illustrated by a very different sort of documents. A more consistent supplement or companion to this volume would be a comparative assortment of corresponding Origines of the other constitutions of Europe. This is a branch of study without which the student cannot fully realise either the peculiar characteristics of his own national polity, or the deep and wide basis which it has in common with those of the modern nations of the Continent. To have furnished however in this volume, even the bare texts of the chief constitutional monuments of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Scandinavia, would have obliged me to alter the plan altogether; nor could the comparative Constitutional History of Europe be illustrated at all thoroughly on the same scale. For the present, I commend this little book to the good offices of teachers, and to the tender mercies of pupils, in the firm conviction that the subject it illustrates is of the first educational importance, and in the hope that the plan and line of study which it suggests will be found well calculated to draw out the mind, and to extend the area of sound teaching.
{{comment.content}}