The present volume, a large octavo of some seven hundred pages, is evidently the work of much thought, research and time, though the author regrets that he was compelled to prepare his lectures without adequate preparation. They were delivered at the University of Cambridge, Stephen occupying in that institution the professorship of history. He succeeded, we believe, William Smythe, a dry, hard and pedantic, though well read professor, whose lectures on history and on the French Revolution are the most uninteresting of useful books. Stephen is almost his equal in historical knowledge, and his superior in the graces of style and in the power of making his knowledge attractive. His work, indeed, though it can hardly give him the reputation of a great historian, is altogether the best view of French history in the English language, and is an invaluable guide to all who wish to gain a thorough acquaintance with France in her historical development. It gives the causes of the decline and fall of the various dynasties of her government, the character of her feudal system, the steps by which her government became an absolute monarchy, and the differences between the absolute monarchy of Henry IV. and Louis XIV. The lectures on the anti-feudal influence of the municipalities, of the Eastern Crusades, of the Albigensian Crusades—the masterly view of the position occupied by the Parliaments, the Privileged Orders and the States General, in relation to the Monarchy of France—and the expositions of the sources and management of the revenues of the nation, are all eminently lucid and valuable, and without any of the ostentatious brilliancy and paradoxical generalization which are apt to characterize the French historical school, are really modest contributions to the philosophy of history.