Editor’s Notepg 526Editor’s Note2346To An Unknown CorrespondentMay 1816 (Aet 68)

Queen's Square Place Westminster May 1816

Dear Sir,

Permitt me to recommend to your patronage the embryo of an Institution,² the nature of which is explained in the inclosed sheet, together with the accompanying tract. The originators, among whom however I can scarce number myself, are ambitious of the benefit of your assistance, in the character of one of the select, and comparatively small, number of Managers. A Glance at the list will, I trust, save you from any such apprehension, as that of finding yourself in bad company. I may say so the more freely, not being of the number. In addition to that of contributor to the expence, (taking twenty shares, half in my own name, half in my brother's) together with the ground for building, and an et cetera or two, the relation I bear to the Institution is, as the paper will shew, that of literary Drudge.

So far as concerns money, with the exception of the trifling difference between five p cent and what might be made in funds, I consider myself (I must confess) as contributing under the terms which you will see, nothing more than the mere advance: this not being an affair of Charity—a comparatively small sum sufficient, and a return, though without profit, expected and reckoned upon.