whole, inclined to think I would join him, if
he could get the other gentlemen he mentioned to me to be concerned. I
think no _cash_ is to be advanced by you, upon his plan. It will be some
months before he can begin, and I would not exclude myself from a
chance."

Dr. Belknap's letters to Webster unfortunately do not appear, but his
friend, through whom he wrote, commends him for his prudence. "I find,"
he writes, "you have not a more exalted idea of the Monarch than I have.
I should not be fond of a connection with him, unless I saw it clearly
to my interest." He praises him also for his exertions in behalf of the
feeble "Columbian," which owed its life to him, in his opinion. Oddly
enough, after all of Hazard's cautions and advice to Belknap, he seems
himself to have been involved in negotiations with Webster, and from
this point the correspondence has more interest as throwing light upon
the estimation in which literary material was held at the time. Mr.
Hazard had for a long time been making a collection of papers bearing
upon American colonial history, and had not seen his way clear to a
profitable publication of them. Noah Webster suddenly appears as the
agent for a new magazine in which he has a slight interest, and makes
proposals to Mr. Hazard. It is amusing to see how shy Hazard is of any
close connection with Webster, and yet how continually Webster appears
in the foreground in the affair.

"What would you think," writes Hazard to Belknap, "of my collection of
papers coming to light after lying in obscurity so long? It is likely to
be the case. The 'American Magazine' is to appear in a new form,[8] and
on an extensive plan, and to be the property of _a society_ of
gentlemen, among whom N. W. holds but one share; and I am told he is
going to remove from hence [New York] to Connecticut, so that he will
not be the editor. Their plan is to publish one hundred and four pages
monthly, fifty-six of them are to be in the usual magazine style,
twenty-four are to contain State Papers, and twenty-four either
historical _MSS._, such as 'Winthrop's Journal,' or a republication of
ancient, valuable, and scarce American histories, such as Smith's of
Virginia, etc., etc. N. W. called, to know if I would dispose of my
collection for this purpose, informing me that they intended to print in
such a way that the State Papers and histories might be detached from
the magazine and bound by themselves. After considering of the mat