By Mr. Pae's death a blank has been made in the cultured and literary circles of Dundee. He was a man possessing a large amount of information, gathered from long years of varied reading and study. He had also a profound knowledge of human nature, obtained by close observation among all classes of people, among whom he freely mixed in the early days of his career. He was a writer of uncommon readiness and power, and had accomplished an amount of literary work which throws the performances of some of our most noted authors into the shade. As a journalist he was cautious and discreet; as a reviewer generous yet candid. But it was as a novelist that he won his highest place in literature, having written a number of serials, especially those appearing in the People's Friend, which week after week and month after month, held enchained the attention of his readers, who could be numbered by hundreds of thousands.

An earnest-hearted man, in all his work he tried, though never obtrusively, to enforce on his readers the truest and most valuable lessons of human life. The influence of his pen has undoubtedly done much to preserve the true and thorough character of the Scottish people among whom his writings circulated, and to him is largely due the respect in which the People's Journal is held throughout the country, and the high character it has attained as a weekly messenger to the people. As editor of the People's Friend from its commencement, Mr. Pae had further scope offered him of exercising his strong, manly influence. He placed before himself a high standard to be attained by his miscellany, and the result, we have reason to know, more than reached his expectations. But, as we have said, his contributions to the People's Journal were the chief work of his career. For years he contributed a series of stories of the most brilliant and pleasing kind - bold and subtle in plot, powerful in incident, rich in imaginative qualities, and graphic in their descriptions of character and scenery.

It is difficult, with the news of his death so recent, and with the painful fact scarcely yet realized by the writer, to sum up his personal qualities. Yet we cannot refrain from bearing testimony to the generous manner in which he extended counsel and encouragement to young literary aspirants, and to the interest he took in their subsequent career. More than one who have, thus encouraged, fought their way to success will deeply, with the writer, regret that their friend is no more, and that they can but cherish the memory of him to whom they can no longer express their graitude. He was a genial, simple-minded man - ever shrinking from publicity, and even in the heyday of his literary triumph never desiring that his name should be attached to anything he wrote. He leaves a widow and two sons, for whom much heartfelt sympathy is expressed.