"Dear Hogg,--I am truly obliged to you for the solicitude which you express concerning the treatment 'Roderick' may experience in the _Edinburgh Review_, and truly gratified by it, notwithstanding my perfect indifference as to the object in question. But you little know me, if you imagine that any thoughts of fear or favour would make me abstain from speaking publicly of Jeffrey as I think, and as he deserves. I despise his commendation, and I defy his malice. _He_ crush the 'Excursion!!!'[33] Tell him that he might as easily crush Skiddaw. For myself, _popularity_ is not the mark I shoot at; if it were, I should not write such poems as 'Roderick;' and Jeffrey can no more stand in my way to _fame_, than Tom Thumb could stand in my way in the street. "He knows that he has dealt unfairly and maliciously by me; he knows that the world knows it, that his very friends know it, and that if he attacks 'Roderick' as he did 'Madoc' and 'Kehama,' it will be universally imputed to personal ill-will. On the other hand, he cannot commend this poem without the most flagrant inconsistency. This would be confessing that he has wronged me in the former instances; for no man will pretend to say that 'Madoc' does not bear marks of the same hand as 'Roderick;' it has the same character of language, thought, and feeling; it is of the same ore and mint; and if the one poem be bad, the other cannot possibly be otherwise. The irritation of the _nettling_ (as you term it), which he has already received [a portion of the letter is torn off and lost].... Whatever part he may take, my conduct towards him will be the same. I consider him a public nuisance, and shall deal with him accordingly. "Nettling is a gentle term for what he has to undergo. In due season he shall be _scorpioned_ and _rattlesnaked_. When I take him in hand it shall be to dissect him alive, and make a preparation of him to be exhibited _in terrorem_, an example to all future pretenders to criticism. He has a forehead of native brass, and I will write upon it with aqua-fortis. I will serve him up to the public like a turkey's gizzard, sliced, scored, peppered, salted, cayanned, grilled, and bedevilled. I will bring him to justice; he shall be executed in prose, and gibbeted in verse....[34]