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No. IV.[*]
On considering the question you do me the honour to put to me, my answer is this: If you write for fame, go on; if for money, desist, unless the Dutchess of Northumberland or Lord Chesterfield will enable you to bear the expense of continuing the paper till it becomes so well known as to support itself. This they surely could do without any inconvenience to their opulent fortunes: and this I would do, if I were in their circumstances, with great pleasure.
Instead of sending you this letter, I would have waited upon you; but
some indisposition confines me at home this morning; and to-morrow I am
engaged to go out of town. I am, with sincere admiration of your talents
and sentiments, Madam, your most obedient and humble servant,
Hill-street, Jan. 13, 1771
LYTTELTON.
One would like to know more about Jean Marishall, but the only information given in Sir William Musgrave's Obituary Prior to 1800 (1899), sub. Marshall, Jane is that her name appeared in A Catalogue of Five Hundred Celebrated Authors of Great Britain Now Living (1788). Recourse to that Catalogue reveals nothing new; it is merely a bibliographical notice of her two novels, her unacted comedy, and her two volumes of letters. Nothing about the periodical paper, nothing about her possible patrons. But the four letters to her are of more than ordinary interest, exhibiting and corroborating as they do the tact and courtesy of both men.
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