r 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.

He was at this time far from being settled in life. For half a dozen
years he had been scrambling along as well as he could, teaching,
lecturing, practicing a little law, working his books, writing for the
newspapers, securing the passage of copyright laws, trying this city and
that with new ventures, none of which gave him a subsistence. Meanwhile,
he had met in Philadelphia a Boston lady, whom his diary shows him to
have followed with the zeal of his ardent nature; and it is not to be
wondered at that he carried his point here, as so often elsewhere, and
settled, as he thought at the time, in Hartford, in 1789, with his wife,
Rebecca, daughter of Mr. William Greenleaf, of Boston. His brief account
of himself at this date was in the summary: "I had an enterprising turn
of mind, was bold, vain, and inexperienced." John Trumbull, writing to
Oliver Wolcott, announces that "Webster has returned, and brought with
him a pretty wife. I wish him success, but I doubt, in the present decay
of business in our profession [the law], whether his profits will enable
him to keep up the style he sets out with.