23 APRIL 1892, Page 24

Winifrede's Journal. By Emma Marshall. (Seeley.) —This is a good

specimen of Mrs. Marshall's work. Her heroine is the niece of a mercer in Exeter, and we make her acquaintance at the time when the troubles of the latter days of Charles I. are beginning. Two lovers, one an apprentice of the Puritan persuasion, the

other a gay Cavalier of a good Devonshire family, provide a suffi- cient interest for the story ; and then we have the stately figure of Bishop Hall. The good Bishop's translation from Exeter to Norwich makes a change of scene, and so gives variety to the story. Winifrede takes, as might be expected, a strongly Royalist view of affairs, and is not, nor indeed could be expected to be, always just. These books ought to be written in pairs, or we might have the impressions of a Puritan maiden set over against those that come from the other side. Probably a diarist who should show a judicial temper would be far less readable than Winifrede Carew, née Bridgeman.