How few school-boys, newly emancipated from the manual remonstrances of their respective Cleishbothams, but would welcome with overflowing delight the prospect of a distant and adventurous voyage, no matter whither or on what errand! How few but would prefer a cruise in the far Pacific, a broil amidst Arabian sands, or a freeze in the Laplander's icy regions, to the scholastic toga, the gainful paths of commerce, or even to the gaudy scarlet, so ardently aspired to by many youthful imaginations! But to how very few, in this iron age of toil, is it given to roam at the time of life when roaming is most delightful--when the heart is light and the body strong, when the spirits are high, and thoughts unclogged by care, and when novelty and locomotion constitute keen and real enjoyment! A book by one of the fortunate minority is now before us, and a very pleasant book it is, but as yet unknown to the public; since, for some unexplained reason, whose goodness we incline to doubt, it has been printed for the perusal of friends, instead of being boldly entered to run for the prize of popular approval. If timidity was the cause, the feeling was groundless; the colt had more than a fair chance of the stakes. We would have wagered odds upon him against nags of far greater pretensions. To drop the equine metaphor, we daily see books less meritorious, and infinitely less entertaining, than Mr Ballantyne's "Hudson's Bay," confidently paraded before a public, whose suffrages do not always justify the authors' presumption. Our readers shall judge for themselves in this matter. Favoured with a copy of the privately circulated volume, we propose giving some account of it, and making a few extracts from its varied pages.