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."

If this had been the article, and a gallant editor had made the
transpositions, the author could not with truth acknowledge. If the
alteration were only an omitted adverb, or a few things of the sort, the
author could not with truth deny. In all that comes between, eve