READ, THOMAS BUCHANAN, 1822-72; b. Penn.; entered a sculptor's studio in Cin cinnati. but afterward studied painting. In 1841 he settled in Boston, and began to paint portraits. In 1846 he returned to Philadelphia, and in 1850 went to Plorcitce, where lie spent most of the rest.of his life. Among his works are Lays and Battu& (1848); The House by the Sea (1856); The Wagoner of the Alleghanies (1802); A Summer Story (1865); and Poetical Works (1866).
REAtiE,Avaxs, D.C.L., one of the more distinguished novelists of the day, was horn in 1814. Ile is the youngest son of the late John Reade, esq., of Ipsden louse, Oxfordshire. lie receiv.ed his college education at Oxford, and so distinguished him self as to secure a fellowship. In 1843 he was called to the bar as a member of Lincoln's inn; but his legal studies may be presumed to have been merely nominal, and in no long time it became obvious that his chosen career was that of literature. The books by which lie first became known as a writer of distinct mark and promise were his l, g Wallington and Christie Johnstone, both full of talent, though as yet somewhat crude and immature. In 1856 he fairly established his reputation in the novel in 3 vols.,
Never too Late to Mend, the first of a series of novels, each illustrating some social or public evil. Among his subsequent works are a tale in one volume, The Comae of True Love. remarkable for a rare nicety and subtlety in the delineation of its leading female character; White Lies (3 vols. 1858); The Cloister and the Hearth; Hard Cash (181i31; Grqith Gaunt (1866); Put Yourself in His Place (1870); A Terrible Temptation (1871); and A Smpletoii (1873). He is besides the author of several dramas, which have had more or less success on the stage; the most general favorite, perhaps, being that entitled Masks awl :Faces. Mr. Reade is by common consent a writer of marked ability. Ils has much of the true talent of the raconteur, along with considerable dramatic instinct, and from all his later novels, a sense of general intellectual vigor is strongly borne in upon the reader; while a certain wayward crotchetiness and odd aggressive eccentricity from time to time cropping out, serve rather to give to his writing some _relish and sting of individuality, than seriously to mar its effect.