The Sun.
London, England, 1848-03-17 00:00:00

and as her assertions are borne out by a person respec
able as Evelyn, she may be believed :--4 Queen Mary
wanted bowels ; of this she gave unquestionable proof
the first day she came to Whitehall. She ran about it;
looking into every closet and conveniency, and turning
up the quilts of the beds just as people do at an inn, with
no sort of concern in her appearance. Although at the
time I was extremely caressed by her, I thought this
strange and unbecoming conduct. For whatever neces•
sity there was of deposing King James, he was still her
father, who had been lately driven from that very
chamber, and from that very bed ; and if she felt no
tenderness, I thought, at least, she might have felt
grave, or even pensively sad, at so melancholy a reverse
of fortune. But I kept these thoughts in my own
breast, not even imparting them to my mistress, the
Princess Anne, to whom I could say anything. As the
conduct of her mistress had. been still more coarse and
unnatural than that of her sister, Lady Churchill knew
that she could not blame one without reflecting severely
on the other.
" The following apology, made by her-friend, Burnet,
weighs more against Mary than the bold attack of her
sister's favourite. She put on an air of great gaiety
when she came to Whitehall. I confess I was one of
those who censured her in my thoughts. I thought a
little more seriousness had done as well when she came
into her father's palace, and was to be set on his throne
the next day. I had never seen the least indecency in
any part of her deportment before, which made this ap-
pear to me so extraordinary, that, afterwards I took the
liberty to ask her, " How it came that what she saw in
so sad a revolution in her father's person had not made a
greater impression on her ?" She took this freedom
with her usual goodness, and assured me " That she
felt the sense of it very lively in her thoughts ;" but, she
added, " that the letters which had been writ to her had
obliged her to put on a cheerfulness in which she might
perhaps go too far, because she was obeying directions,
and acting a part not natural to her."
" Thus did Queen Mary throw from herself the blame
of an unfeeling levity, which had revolted oven the
coarse minds of Burnet and Sarah Churchill ; but
surely the commands of her partner bad reference only
to the manner in which she acted the part of royalty,
while the eyes of her new subjects were upon her ; it
did not dictate the heartless glee, when she made her
perambulations to examine into the state of the goods
that had fallen into her grasp, on the evening of her
arrival and betimes in the succeeding morning."
In writing this there is certainly no mere vitupera-
tion, Miss Strickland has presented to us the pros
and the cons with a scrupulous exactitude, and from
those different authorities, from the declarations of
Evelyn, of Lady Churchill, of Burnet, and of Old-
mixon, she has drawn her inferences. While, how-
ever, she has condemned these miserable qualities of
the wife of William 111., our authoress has done
ample justice to her masculine and energetic intel-
iect, as betrayed in her behaviour while governing
to/us when her husband visited either the Hague or
Ireland. Towards the conclusion of the eleventh
volume is given the commencement of the history of
Anne as a Princess. It is pleasant to revert from
the unwinning callousness of Mary, even though it
be merely to contemplate the unheroic indications of
the nascent energies of Anne. Miss Strickland has
manifestly discovered nothing congenial in the per-
sonal peculiarities of either, but she has woven their
lives with a skilful hand into the tissue of her inte-
resting and remarkable narrative.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SON.
Sia,—l take the liberty of extracting from La Scmaine
of Saturday last two anecdotes of the late Revolution in
France, which appear to me very interesting, and which
have not hitherto appeared, I think, in an English form.
They are at your service for insertion in your journal,
sheald you deem them worthy of it.—l am, Sir, &c.
Lincoln's Inn, March 16, 1848. J. T. B.

On the morning of Thursday, the 24th February, a
band of insurgents in search of arms, visited the resi-
dence of the Duke d'Elchingen. Tho Duke was absent,
and the Duchess was alone. "We come for arms," cried
the group. " Take them," said her Grace, pointing to
sonic swords and fire-arms. " And that one?" said a
citizen, pointing to a sword left suspended on the wall.
" That sword," she replied, " belonged to my father-in-
law. 'Tis the sword of Marshal Ney. Do not, pray,
deprive rae of that. The people always respected it."
The men were moved, and taking down the weapon,
they all kissed it with emotion, and placing it in the
hands of Madamed'Elchingen they bowed and withdrew.
When the people had forced their way into the Palais
Royal and had reached the apartments of General
Athalin, one of Louis Phillipels aide-de-camps, they
encountered the General's lady, a woman of dignified
deportment and stature, whom the General had espoused
for her rare beauty, being but the daughter of a poor
fisherman of Granville. "My friends," she exclaimed,
" I trust you have not come here to offer any injury to
myself or my husband. lam not ono of your fine ladies,
but a daughter of the people—l throw myself then con-
fidently on your protectiou. But I will not leave my
husband, he is confined to his bed by illness." The
band were struck with the boldness of the appeal. They
repaired to the General's chamber, placed him in an
arm-chair, and headed by this daughter of the people, they
conveyed him to a friend's house in the neighbourhood.
On reaching his destination tho General recollected
leaving a sum of 130,000 f. (5,2001.) in notes and gold in
his desk. He handed the key of the desk to a working
man in a blouse whom he did not know. An hour after
the man returned with every eons of the ~,nary. This
is by ineanc, a solitary instntwe of the disinterested-
ness and nobility of mind displayed by the people during
these most glorious three days.