accrued to the latter country through its more extended application, he pleaded for its freer admission in the tribunals of his own country. The period of storm and stress in 1848 afforded Gneist an opportunity for which he had yearned, and he threw himself with ardor into the constitutional struggles of Prussia. Although his candidature for election to the National Assembly of that year was unsuccessful, he felt that the die was cast, and, deciding upon a political career, retired from his judicial position in 1850. Entering the ranks of the National Liberal Party, he began both in writing and speeches actively to champion their cause, now busying himself pre-eminently with the study of constitutional law and history. In 1853 his Adel und Rittershaft was published in England, and in 1857 the Geschichte und heutige Gestalt der Ämter in England, a pamphlet primarily written to combat the Prussian abuses of government, but which the author also claimed had not been without its effect in modifying certain views that had until then ruled in England itself. In 1858 Gneist was appointed ordinary professor of Roman law. Also in 1858, he commenced his parliamentary career by his election for Stettin to the Prussian House of Representatives, in which assembly he sat thenceforward uninterruptedly until 1893. Joining the Left, he at once became one of its leading spokesmen. His chief oratorical triumphs are associated with the early period of his membership of the House; two noteworthy occasions being his violent attack (September 1862) upon the government budget in connection with the reorganization of the Prussian army, and his defense (1864) of the Polish chiefs of the Province of Posen, who were accused of high treason. He was a great admirer of the English constitution, and during 1857 to 1863 published Das heutige englische Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsrecht (Contemporary English constitutional law and administration). This work aimed at exercising political pressure upon the government of the day by contrasting English and German constitutional law and administration. In 1868 Gneist became a member of the North German parliament, and acted as a member of the commission for organizing the federal army, and also of that for the settlement of controversial ecclesiastical questions. On the establishment of German unity his mandate was renewed for the Reichstag, and there he served as an active and prominent member of the National Liberal party, until 1884. In the Kulturkampf he