In almost every page in this instructive volume the reader picks up pieces of curious information, or finds matters suggestive of interesting thought. There start up ever and anon valuable hints that germinate and bear fruit in the mind. We would instance, by way of illustration, a hint which occurs in a letter to Lauderdale, written shortly after the Restoration, and which, though apparently slight, leads legitimately into a not unimportant train of thinking. Scotchmen are much in the habit of referring to the political maxim that the king can do no wrong, as a fundamental principle of the constitution, which concerns them as directly as it does their neighbours the English. Dr. Chalmers alluded to it no later than last week, in his admirable speech in the Commission. The old maxim, that the king could do no wrong, he said, had now, it would seem, descended from the throne to the level of courts co-ordinate with the Church. Would it not be a somewhat curious matter to find that this doctrine is one which has in reality not entered Scotland at all? It stands in England, a guardian in front of the throne, transferring every blow which would otherwise fall on the sovereign himself, to the sovereign's ministers: it is ministers, not sovereigns, who are responsible to the people of England. But it would at least seem, that with regard to the people of Scotland the responsibility extends further. At least the English doctrine was regarded as _exclusively_ an English one in the days of Baillie, nearly half a century prior to the Union, and more than a whole century ahead of those times in which the influence of that event began to have the effect of mixing up in men's minds matters peculiar to England with matters common to Britain. We find Baillie, in his letter written immediately after the passing of the Act Recissory, pronouncing the doctrine that the 'king can do no fault,' as in his judgment 'good and wise,' but referring to it at the same time as a doctrine, not of the Scottish Constitution, but of the 'State of England.'