Mate of the 'Jessica': a Story of the South Pacific.
By F. Frank. 'fort Moore. (Marcus Ward and Co.)—This is a dashing, delightful story of the sea ; full of all the charming impossibilities, desperate vil- lainies, hairbreadth escapes, angelic innocence, incomparable bravery, dreadful suspense, subtle scheming, and simple upsetting of it all by the force of love, honesty, and strength of purpose, which are associated with our earliest and happiest recollections of "the high seas" and the heroism of piracy. It is much to be regretted that the South Pacific, would be inconvenient to represent on the stage, for Mate of the Jessica would make a grand sensation drama ; the bold substitution of himself for the real owner of the ship by the chief villain, is one of the happiest and most effective " situations" in modern fiction of the adventurous kind. The story has not so much sustained power and interest as "The Wreck of the Grosvenor," but it is the best of the kind which we have had since that remarkable novel.
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