its proper employment; her time being so apportioned out to business and diversion, to the devout exercises of the closet, and to the polite customs of the court, that the most scrupulous observer could not pronounce her to be too serious or too merry, too retiring or too busy, nor could find out the slightest cause of censure in her well-considered actions, nor in her prudent yet engaging deportment. Her capacity was great; her memory, and the clearness of her comprehension, were particularly remarkable; her attention to everything laid before her was that of a superior and reflective mind. Yet she was humility itself; her distrust of her own judgment was accompanied by an absolute reverence for the King’s opinions; and her perfections were crowned, in the sight of the English people, by her firm though unobtrusive adherence to the Protestant faith, of which she was regarded as the chief stay and support, after her merits and her opinions had been fully disclosed. Such were the qualities assigned to Mary by her zealous panegyrist; but with all these attributes,—admirable in a private sphere, excellent in a queen,—like many persons of regular habits, patterns of virtue in a quiet way,—perfect when not put out of their habitual course,—prudent, submissive, and placid, Mary had one grand defect. She wanted heart. Gentle in her nature, whilst free from the passions of pride and anger, she was devoid also of the generosity which sometimes accompanies those defects in character. She rarely gave cause of offence, but she could not forgive. Too good a wife, she sacrificed filial to conjugal duty; forgetting that the Saviour, whose precepts she honoured, throughout all his high vocation, knew no obligation which could obliterate the duty to parents. But Mary may be held up to the degenerate wives of the present day, as one who would have been at once their model and their reproof, had she been placed under different circumstances. In anything less than the cruel alternative of ceasing to revere and to protect a parent at the command of a husband, or, for the sake of her consort’s political views, Mary would have risen pre-eminent in esteem, both immediate and posthumous. Transplanted early to a foreign soil, she devoted herself with ready submission to the wishes, the pursuits, the very prejudices of a husband whom she could not have loved, had she not possessed feelings different from those of her sex in general. At his command she became sedate and obedient; her naturally good spirits were subdued into the tone which her reserved but not unimpassioned husband deemed becoming in woman, and essential in her who had the honour of sharing his damp climate and cold heart.