were all on fire with ambition; and when they had called me in to
them, and made me a sharer in their design, I too became drunken
with pride and hope. We were to found a University magazine. A
pair of little, active brothers - Livingstone by name, great
skippers on the foot, great rubbers of the hands, who kept a book-
shop over against the University building - had been debauched to
play the part of publishers. We four were to be conjunct editors
and, what was the main point of the concern, to print our own
works; while, by every rule of arithmetic - that flatterer of
credulity - the adventure must succeed and bring great profit.
Well, well: it was a bright vision. I went home that morning
walking upon air. To have been chosen by these three distinguished
students was to me the most unspeakable advance; it was my first
draught of consideration; it reconciled me to myself and to my
fellow-men; and as I steered round the railings at the Tron, I
could not withhold my lips from smiling publicly. Yet, in the
bottom of my heart, I knew that magazine would be a grim fiasco; I
knew it would not be worth reading; I knew, even if it were, that
nobody would read it; and I kept wondering how I should be able,
upon my compact income of twelve pounds per annum, payable monthly,
to meet my share in the expense. It was a comfortable thought to
me that I had a father.

The magazine appeared, in a yellow cover, which was the best part
of it, for at least it was unassuming; it ran four months in
undisturbed obscurity, and died without a gasp. The first number
was edited by all four of us with prodigious bustle; the second
fell principally into the hands of Ferrier and me; the third I
edited alone; and it has long been a solemn question who it was
that edited the fourth. It would perhaps be still more difficult