Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/392

 Finlay's Greece, Mr. Hodgkin's Italy and her Invaders, Professor Rogers' Extracts from Gascoigne, and two new volumes of the History of Agriculture, the collections and comments of Dr. Vigfusson and Mr. York Powell, Mr. Kitchin's third volume of French History, Mr. Sidney Owen's Selection of Wellesley and Wellington Dispatches, not to speak of the works in which History claims an equal share with Language or Law, testify to the zeal which the Delegates of the Press have encouraged in the same direction. Outside of our lines, time would fail me to tell of Mr. Skene's completed labours on Early Scotland, of the interesting aud suggestive work of Mr. Seebohm, of Mr. Elton's searching and comprehensive examination into the history of Primitive Britain; or going further ahead, of the immensely valuable editions and republications of the Laws and Chronicles of Germany, now proceeding under the management of Dr. Waitz, and full of illustration of the history of the common institutions of the German races.

It is most gratifying to a student of the institutions of England to find that in the literature of more distant nations the study of our constitution is taking an important place. I cannot refrain from expressing the great pleasure which it gives me to receive, from time to time, heavy volumes and light pamphlets of dissertations on the subjects at which we have been at work here, from scholars in Germany, Russia, Denmark, France, Italy and America, who read and criticise and utilise our books. From Berlin we hear of Dr. Gneist, reissuing and rewriting on his old subject; from Munich, of Dr. Liebermann re-editing the Anglo-Saxon Laws for the Bavarian Academy; from Vienna we have Dr. Budinger's lectures on the Englische Verfassungs-Geschichte; from Parma Signer Cardon's Svolgimento Storico; from Wiirzburg Dr. Schanz's Handelspolitik; Sickel doing the same work at Gottingen; Bronner at Berlin; Kovalefski and Vinogradojff in Russia; Steenstrup in Denmark; and in America, where our study has taken root with remarkable and most promising vigour, the clusters of searchers, such as the men of the Johns Hopkins University, and to specify particularly, Mr. Bigelow, the author of the work