The subject of the present notice was picked up at sea, a child, and, under the provisions of maritime law concerning flotsam, jetsam, and lagan, was appropriated by the crew.  He then followed their fortunes for several years, with various adventures, among which is the one wherein he is said to have accompanied Arthur Gordon Pym (disguised in the published account of that voyage under the name and appearance of one Peters) upon his fearful South-Sea sail towards that vapory cataract at the world’s end which was seen “rolling silently into the sea from some immense and far-distant rampart of the heaven,” from the horrors of which he escaped in the same miraculous manner that Mr. Pym did.  He must still have been young at the time, as this occurred in 1838.  Unable to find any credence to these extraordinary statements upon his return, he found an asylum from the unbelieving world, where, in order not to become a permanent resident, and being capable of impartial judgment thereon, he employed himself in a profound study of finance.  Emerging from this seclusion, lest he should defraud his natural element entirely, he plunged into the hot water of the revolutions then ravaging Europe.  Receiving wounds, he was laid up in hospital; and being of an active turn of mind and debarred from other pursuits, he fell (like Dr. Marie Zakrzewski) to studying the cards renewed every day above the patients’ beds with the disease written thereon, its symptoms, and its treatment; in this manner he acquired quite a knowledge of medicine.  He was, however, mercifully prevented from practising by the fact, that, upon repeating his story to an acquaintance, he met, as before, with such total disbelief, that, most fortunately for many readers, he determined at once to devote the remainder of his days to fiction.

How much faith such a narrative deserves we leave others to decide.  It, however, has the virtue, as Una declares again, of plausibly explaining Mr. Reade’s entire misapprehension of the feminine portion of humanity,—­since, during the whole course of such a career, it would have been impossible that he should have made intimate acquaintance with a single specimen of the sex.  It is true that in “Christie Johnstone” he speaks of the musical performances of certain female relatives of his own; but of course that is to be taken only as a part of the fiction.  One thing, however, is evident,—­that, if this sketch is not true, the converse of it must be, and where the reader has paid his money he may take his choice.

Mr. Reade’s latest novel, “Very Hard Cash,” is a continuation of a previous one, “Love me Little, Love me Long.”  A great charm of Thackeray’s books was, that in every fresh one we heard a little news of the dear old friends of former ones; and “Very Hard Cash” has all the advantage of prepossession in its favor.  Its forerunner was a startling thing to the circulating-library, for the hero was an entirely new character, dashing