MARY II. queen of England, eldest daughter of James II. by his first wife, was born at St James's in 1662. She was bred up a Protestant, and married to the illustrious William Henry of Nassau, then prince of Orange, afterward king of England, in the 16th year of her age. She staid in Holland with her husband till February 12, 1689, when she came over, and was solemnly proclaimed queen of England, &c. She was an equal sharer with her royal husband in all the rights belonging to the crown; but the administration and execution thereof was lodged solely in the king. She was a princess endowed with the highest perfections both of body and mind; she loved history, as being proper to give her useful instructions; and was also a good judge as well as a lover of poetry. She studied more than could be imagined, and would have read more than she did, if the frequent returns of ill-humours in her eyes had not forced her to spare them. She gave her minutes of leisure to architecture and gardening; and since it employed many hands, she said, she hoped it would be forgiven her. She was the most gracious of sovereigns to her subjects, and the most obliging of wives to her husband, as well as the most excellent of mistresses to her servants: she ordered good books to be laid in the places of attendance, that persons might not be idle while they were in their turns of service. She was exceeding zealous for a reformation of manners; charitable in the highest degree, without the least ostentation. This excellent queen died on the 28th of December 1695, at Kensington, of the small-pox, in the 33d year of her age. In her the arts lost a protectress, the unfortunate a mother, and the world a pattern of every virtue. As to her person, she was tall, of a majestic graceful mien, her countenance serene, her complexion ruddy, and her features beautiful.
MARY MAGDALEN'S DAY, a festival of the Romish church, observed on the 22d of July.