PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. THIS short history of the Irish Parliament was written and first published some years ago, while the author was still at Cambridge. The subject is treated from no political standpoint, and the work does not aspire to literary merit; the author believes, however, that it will be found to contain an accurate and comprehensive résumé of the events which marked the existence of an Irish Legislature, and that its republication at the present crisis is thereby justified. Recent attempts to treat the Home Rule question historically, and to predict the future by a study of the past, render it at least necessary to know the past as it really was. W. E. H.-W. |