CURRENT LITERATURE.
GIFT-BOOKS.
Kensington Palace in the Days of Queen Mary II. By Emma Marshall. (Seeley and Co.)—Mrs. Marshall in this work, as in all its predecessors, is eminently painstaking, and endeavours to give reality to the period with which she deals. But the result is not quite so satisfactory as usual,—perhaps because she has been too much bent on utilising the fresh light that has been thrown upon the life of the second Mary by the works of the Comtesse Bentinck and Dr. R. Dobner. At all events, the narra- tive does not flow very easily, and Mary does not look a flesh- and-blood personage. The story of her death from small-pox, and of her generally austere husband's passionate grief, is, however,. admirably told. The contrast between Mary and her sister Anne is also brought out with great care and delicacy, and the poor little Duke of Gloucester is introduced very skilfully. The sub- ordinate and purely imaginary characters are, however, more important than their principals ; the best are perhaps the some- what cowardly Roger Payne and his wife Isabel.
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