The 'Present Question' of the Irish land, and of Irish landed relations, goes back to even remote antiquity, and is connected with the whole course of Irish history. The characteristics and peculiarities of tribal land tenure in Ireland, before the Anglo-Norman Conquest, have been admirably explained in Sir Henry Maine's 'Early History of Institutions,' a very valuable work. I may refer to an article on this book, from my pen, in the _Edinburgh Review_ of July, 1875. See, also, the 'Senchus Mor,' and the 'Book of Aicile,' fragments of the Brehon Laws, well annotated by the late Professor Richey. The state of the Irish land, from the Anglo-Norman Conquest to the beginning of the Tudor period, has been fully illustrated in the 'Statute of Kilkenny,' edited by James Hardiman, whose learned commentary is useful and important; in the 'Discovery' of Sir John Davies; in Spenser's 'View of the State of Ireland;' in the 'O'Conors of Connaught,' by the O'Conor Don; in Hallam's 'Constitutional History,' vol. iii. chapter on Ireland; and in Professor Richey's 'Lectures.' I have glanced at the state of Irish land tenure during the tribal and the feudal ages, in the introductory chapters to my 'Ireland, 1494-1868,' in the 'Cambridge Historical Series.' The most complete account, perhaps, of the confiscations of the Irish land, from the reign of Henry VIII. to that of Charles I., will be found in the 'Carew Papers,' edited by J. S. Brewer and William Bullen; valuable information abounds in the 'State Papers relating to the reign of Henry VIII.,' edited by Hans Claude Hamilton; in 'The Life of Sir John Perrott and his Letters;' in the 'Earls of Kildare,' edited by the Marquis of Kildare; in the 'State Papers,' edited by Hamilton, _ante_, 'relating to the reigns of Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth;' in the 'Annals of the Four Masters;' and see Davies and Spenser, _ante_. Several modern writers have treated this subject in their narratives of Irish history; Froude's 'History of England,' vol. ii. ch. viii.; vol. iv. ch. xix.; vol. v. ch. xxviii.; vol. viii. chs. vii.-xi.; vol. x. ch. xxiv.; vol. xi. ch. xxvii., may be consulted; but a reader should be put on his guard against the brilliant but partisan historian. There is a valuable chapter also, in a very different work, Mr. Lecky's 'History of England in the Eighteenth Century,' vol. ii. ch. vi. pp. 92 _seqq._; and a great deal may be learned from the 'O'Conors of Connaught,' and Richey's 'Lectures,' _ante_; and especially from an 'Historical Account of the Plantation of Ulster,' by the Rev. George Hill, and from Sigerson's 'History of Irish Land Tenure.' In the momentous period of confiscation, from the beginning of the reign of Charles I. to that of William III., a reader should study 'Strafford's Letters;' Carte's 'Life of Ormond;' Lord Clanricarde's 'Memoirs;' the 'Letters of Cromwell,' edited by Carlyle; the 'Acts of Settlement and Explanation;' the 'Articles