A Son of Belial : Autobiographical Sketches. By Nitram Tradleg.
(Trfibner and Co.)—Very transparent pseudonyms affect only to veil the writer and the places about which he writes. His book is a sort of apologia pro vita sue. He tells us how he was brought up under very strong Calvinistic influences ; how he was continually agitated from very early years by anxiety about the welfare of his soul ; how he found refuge for a time in orthodoxy, took Orders in the Church of England, though having by that time begun to have considerable doubts ; left these, to minister to a congregation of Unitarians ; and means, he hints not obscurely, to go possibly some little way farther. This is all interesting ; and if only the right people would read it—Calvinistic parents who are torturing their children—might be very useful. But the most attractive part of the book is the sketch of Bailie], as it was some twenty years ago. Some- times, Mr. Tradleg, or, if the audacious conjecture may be allowed, Mr. Gildart, is a little too personal, and sometimes, we think, too severe, but he is never spiteful or unkind. He is most distinctly entertaining.
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