Still in his thirties, Anthony Julius has an uneven fame: he is both the high-flying lawyer representing the Princess of Wales, in her impending divorce from Prince Charles, and the author of T.S. Eliot, Anti-Semitism and Literary Form, a serious study which has been greeted, in literary circles, with conspicuous reticence. Although published by the Cambridge University Press, it has not been reviewed in the Times Literary Supplementor in most of the major newspapers. Since Dr Julius - his book is a revised, successful PhD thesis - took two years out from his legal career in order to train for and acquire the intellectual muscle, and warrant, to get into the ring with Mr Eliot, he might be excused for expecting at least a chorus of welcome obloquy after a Rocky-like training period which qualified him to challenge one of the champions of High Culture.

By contrast, as Princess Diana's legal counsel, Julius has become a gossip column celebrity, the minutiae of whose office politics merit newsprinted attention: we have been treated to headlined promises that his usual secretary at Mishcon, De Reya was miffed when he imported a different (tighter-lipped) typist to deal with palatial business. It has also been exclusively disclosed that some of his colleagues detected symptoms of hubristic vanity in his bearing: like Eliot's Princess Volupine, Diana both lends kudos to her escorts and excites envy in those whose arm, or advice, she disdains to take.

Perhaps the muted reception of ...