7 JANUARY 1865, Page 27

'loyal Children. By Julia Luard. (Groombridge and Sons.)—Miss Luard is

dreadfully puzzled every now and then how to bring her in- formation down to the level of little girls' minds, but she has succeeded very well, and has given a series of very pleasant and very accurate historiettes. There is a particularly good account of the marriage of Mary Stuart with the Prince of Orange, the almost forgotten episode in English history which gave William the Deliverer to Holland and to England. Miss Luard describes the State reasons for this alliance in very simple language, and does not forget the dress and demeanour of the child bride, who married at ten, joined her husband at fourteen, was left a widow at sixteen, and died at twenty-six, mother of the greatest sovereign who ever mounted the British throne. The account of the childhood of the reigning sovereign is affectionate and loyal, without that degrading flattery of a child which deforms almost all similar narratives. It adheres, too, to established facts.