“But it is not our province or intention to enter into a discussion of the veracity of Vidocq’s Memoirs: be they true or false; were they purely fiction from the first chapter to the last, they would, from fertility of invention, knowledge of human nature, and ease of style, rank only second to the novels of Le Sage. The first volume is perhaps more replete with interest, because the hero is the leading actor in every scene; but in the subsequent portions, when he gives the narrative of others, we cannot but admire the power and graphic talent of the author. Sergeant Bellerose is scarcely inferior to the Sergeant Kite of Farquhar; and the episodes of Court and Raoul, and that of Adele d’Escars, are surpassed in description, depth of feeling, and pathos, by no work of romance with which we are acquainted.” _From the Boston Traveller._ “MEMOIRS OF VIDOCQ.--He who reads this book, being previously unacquainted with the mystery of iniquity, will find himself introduced at once into a new world: but it is a world which must be known only to be avoided. Never before was such a mass of depravity opened to the mind of inquiry in a single volume. It was well said by Byron, ‘truth is strange, stranger than fiction.’ Whoever passes through the details of this singular exposition, supposing it to contain correct delineations of fact, will be satisfied of the justness of this remark. “The details of the varied scenes through which he has passed in private and public life, surpass all the creations of fancy, and all the delineations of fact, from the wonderful relations of the Arabian Nights to the renowned exploits of Mr. Lemuel Gulliver; and from the extraordinary sufferings and escapes of the celebrated Baron Trenck to the still more marvellous exploits of the famous Mr. Thomas Thumb. “It would seem, on following this singular writer through his adventures, as if all the crimes of which human nature is capable, all the horrors of which the universe has heard, all the astonishing incidents which history can develope or imagination portray, all the cool-blooded malice of the assassin, and all the varied machinations of the most ingenious and systematic practitioners in the school of vice, in all its varied departments, had been crowded into the life of a single individual, or come beneath his cognizance. The lover of mystery, who delights to ‘sup upon horrors,’ the admirer of romance, who is pleased with the heightened pictures of the most fanciful imagination, and the inquirer into the policy of crime and its prevention, may here have their utmost curiosity satiated.