The Times last Saturday gave an account of a curious
action brought by Mr. Davis against the Charing-Cross Publishing Company, on the ground that a novel published for him by them had not been properly got up, or given an adequate chance of success. Evidence was, however, produced that the type, printing, and paper were of a respectable order, and that if there had been delay in producing the novel, the delay was in no small degree due to the heavy corrections of the author made while the novel was passing through the press. The striking feature of the trial was, however, the plaintiff's admission on cross-examination that he had himself written the greater part of the two most complimentary reviews of his work,—but this, he said, was' by no means an uncommon practice with authors. Possibly not. For anything we know, there may be plenty of authors who occupy a good deal of their leisure in writing complimentary reviews of their own books. But' there are, we hope, very few editors who would adopt such reviews, without candidly explaining that they contain only the author's con- victions or illusions as to his own merits. So explained, such reviews might be both instructive and amusing. But then, so, explained, the authors would probably shrink from confiding to the public the illusions which, when veiled under the anonymous. editorial " we," they probably regard,—so easy is self-deception, —as a kind of independent testimony to their own merit.
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