Thomas I know not, but I must do him the justice to say that he did not tell me the names of any of the proprietors, excepting yourself and himself; nor do I know who the others are." Hazard's papers were finally published by themselves, and the Magazine and Register never got beyond the proposals point. Before the collection was published, however, another magazine loomed up, for the regular failure of each venture never seemed to dampen the ardor of magazine projectors. The story of the enterprise sketched in these letters may be taken as the story of all,--sanguine literary men and inert subscribers; a class of material is reckoned upon which always seems abundant, vastly interesting to the persons who hold it, but insufficient to beguile subscribers. Mr. Hazard, with his collection of papers, expects five hundred pounds, and his associates think him not unreasonable, especially after he agrees to pay one fourth himself; and with all his prudence and shrewdness he begins to count on the profits of the magazine with something of Webster's facile hope. Webster himself, in spite of the dislike with which Hazard and Belknap agreed to regard him, appears in an honorable light. No doubt he was consequential and eager to have a hand in what was going on, but he had the confidence and courage which seem to have been lacking in his associates. His impulsive dashes at literature and capricious excursions into the realms of language were offensive to highly conservative and orderly scholars like these correspondents, and they sniffed at him rather contemptuously; but Webster could disregard the criticism of others when he had such unbounded self-reliance and zeal. He did not count the cost carefully of what he undertook, but allowed himself the luxury of seizing at once upon what engaged his interest. The publication of "Winthrop's Journal," referred to in the correspondence, was an undertaking which a more scholarly man might have set about with greater care and deliberation. Webster never read the original. He saw a copy from it in the possession of Governor Trumbull, and, perceiving the value of the material, made haste to get it published. He employed a secretary of the governor, who made a copy of the copy, comparing it with the original, which Webster had never seen. Mr. Savage, the learned editor of the Journal in its complete form, sarcastically says: "The celebrated philologist, _who in his English Dictionary triumphed over the difficulties_ of derivation in our etymology from Danish, Russian, Irish, Welsh, German, high or low, Sanscrit, Persian, or Chaldee fountains, might, after exhausting his patience, have reputably shrunk from encounter with the manuscript of Winthrop." But it was something for Webster to have succeeded in securing a publication of the book in 1790, and the credit due him is not lessened by the fact that he risked his whole property in the enterprise, and lost money.