Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/931

 Minor Notices 921 the method of collecting statistics on the growth of enclosures and the decay of towns. The value of this collection to the serious student of American his- tory can hardly be over-estimated. It contains a rich treasure of con- cise and accurate information upon all phases of the structure of Eng- lish society at the beginning of American settlement. Whether one wants a general idea of some important institution, or facts bearing upon some point of detail, there is no single volume for the period which compares with it in richness of content. With no great labor in piecing the fragments together, one can get a complete view of the essential features of the structure and organization of the English Church. By simple reference to the index one will find something short and illu- minating upon such a subject as indentured servants, or the care of the poor. Though ecclesiastical doctrine does not fall strictly within its scope, I do not know where to find a better brief statement of the doc- trines of the Independents than on page 223, or of early Puritan de- mands than on page 191. The long introduction is not the least valuable part of the book. It offers a general view of such topics as the organization of Parliament, the relations of Parliament to the Crown, the arbitrary courts, the rise of Puritanism, penal laws against the Puritans and the Roman Catholics, the judiciary, the army, and the naw. ^ . (j. J. Dc Rcpuhlica ^inglonnn. A Discourse on the CommonzL'calth of England. By Sir Thomas Smith. Edited by L. Alston, Christ's Col- lege, with a preface by F. W. Maitland, LL.D., Downing Professor of the Laws of England. (Cambridge, University Press, 1906, pp. liii, 210.) This treatise is a famous work, and yet not accurately known. A Latin translation has been mistaken, even by scholars, for the original text. The present volume is a reprint of the first edition, published in 1583, eighteen years after the work was written and six years after the author's death. Smith was the first Regius Professor of civil law at Cambridge ; and he was appointed secretary of state under Somerset in 1548, and again, under Elizabeth, in 1572. In scholarship, law, and religion, he was on the side of reform. In this treatise his breach with medievalism appears by his ignoring all connection between theology and politics. On the other hand, the editor maintains that Smith's posi- tion as a forerunner of the modern view of parliamentary, as against royal, supremacy, has been exaggerated, Mr. Alston's opinion being that Smith's oft quoted statement on that point is qualified distinctly in the succeeding sentences. In fact, to Smith, with his legal bias, the con- stitution of a commonwealth consists practically of its courts ; and it is only as parts of the judicial system that the King and Parliament re- ceive, in this treatise, attention. In addition to these and other points, Mr. Alston discusses the use made of each other's writings by Smith in this work and by Harrison in his Description of England; the balance