I never did an act in my life that I am afraid to acknowledge, and, as I am the sole and unassisted Editor of the "Apocryphal New Testament," I feel no more hesitation in avowing it, than difficulty in justifying it. Had the "Quarterly Review" confined its strictures to an examination of the book I should have had no reason to address you thus — but a week's reflection has confirmed the first impression with which I read the attack upon me personally in your last number, and I think on a reperusal must feel that the Article is of such a character as to authorize me in requesting the name of my unknown calumniator.
The Reviewer himself professes so warm an indignation at a "dastard behind" that he will, of course, be eager to come forward, and thus avoid the imputation of being one himself — or perhaps in your case, as in mine, there may be no "dastard behind," and if so you will not refuse the opportunity I now offer you, of raising yourself from the degradation of a concealed, to the respectability of an open assailant.
I urge this request that I may meet my adversary on equal terms in the pamphlet I have announced — and I trust that the manner in which I should treat him if I knew his name would convince even the Reviewer himself with what injustice he has applied epithets to me, which if I had employed towards him he would be entitled to call upon me to substantiate or retract.
I await your answer, and