It cannot be without advantage for us to learn how a State so favoured as our own has set about the great work of constitution, and solved the problem, of uniting the completest obedience to the law with the greatest amount of individual free dom. But in the long and chequered history of our State, there are many distinguishable periods some more and some less well known to us. Among those with which we are least familiar is the oldest period. It seems therefore the duty of those whose studies have given them a mastery over its details.