course, an editor never meddles, except under notice, with the letter of a correspondent, whether of a complainant, of a casual informant, or of a contributor who sees reason to become a correspondent. Omissions must sometimes be made when a grievance is too highly spiced. It did once happen to me that a waggish editor made an insertion without notice in a letter signed by me with some fiction, which insertion contained the name of a friend of mine, with a satire which I did not believe, and should not have written if I had. To my strong rebuke, he replied--'I know it was very wrong; but human nature could not resist.' But this was the only occasion on which such a thing ever happened to me. "I daresay what I have written may give some of your readers to understand some of the _pericula et commoda_ of modern journalism. I have known men of deep learning and science as ignorant of the prevailing system as any uneducated reader of a newspaper in a country town. I may perhaps induce some writers not to be too sure about this, that, or the other person. They may detect their reviewer, and they may be safe in attributing to him the general matter and tone of the article. But about one and another point, especially if it be a short and stinging point, they may very easily chance to be wrong. It has happened to myself, and within a few weeks to publication, to be wrong in two ways in reading a past article--to attribute to editorial insertion what was really my own, and to attribute to myself what was really editorial insertion." What is a man to do who is asked whether he wrote an article? He may, of course, refuse to answer; which is regarded as an admission. He may say, as Swift did to Serjeant Bettesworth, "Sir, when I was a young man, a friend of mine advised me, whenever I was asked whether I had written a certain paper, to deny it; and I accordingly tell that I did _not_ write it." He may say, as I often do, {20} when charged with having invented a joke, story, or epigram, "I want all the credit I can get, and therefore I always acknowledge all that is attributed to me, truly or not; the story, etc. _is_ mine." But for serious earnest, in the matter of imputed criticism, the answer may be, "The article was of my material, but the editor has not let it stand as I gave it; I cannot own it as a whole." He may then refuse to be particular as to the amount of the editor's interference. Of this there are two extreme cases. The editor may have expunged nothing but a qualifying adverb. Or he may have done as follows. We all remember the account of Adam which satirizes woman, but eulogizes her if every second and third line be transposed. As in: "Adam could find no solid peace When Eve was given him for a mate, Till he beheld a woman's face, Adam was in a happy state."