28 AUGUST 1926, Page 10

Why is it that many book reviewers delight to set

forth their own views instead of confining their reviews to a description of the volume under consideration ? Nothing more to the point has been said on this subject than what Boswell wrote in his Life of Johnson :- " One, however, I must acknowledge, might he led from the practice of reviewers to suppose that they take a pleasure in original writing ; for we often find that instead of giving an accurate account of what has been done by the author whose work they are reviewing, which is surely the proper business of a literary journal, they produce some plausible and ingenious conceits of their own upon the topics which have been discussed."

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