In the same year Mr. Bowyer printed "Some Testimonies of Learned Men in favour of the intended edition of the _Saxon_ Homilies, concerning the learning of the author of those Homilies, and the advantages to be hoped from an edition of them."[256] And three letters from Miss Elstob to the Lord Treasurer show that he solicited and obtained the Queen's Bounty towards printing the _Homilies_.[257] In spite of all this encouragement the publication of the _Homilies_ hung fire for many months. It is possible that the death of Mr. Elstob and of Dr. Hickes in 1715 delayed matters by depriving Miss Elstob of able advocates and counselors. In July, 1716, Sir P. Sydenham indicates his concern that the book had not yet appeared.[258] In November of that year Mr. T. Baker writes apologetically to Mr. Hearne that he is "deep in M^{rs}. Elstob and Mr. Strype," and that the work does not admit of haste.[259] Later in the same month Mr. Hearne gives the cheering news that "Mrs. Elstob's book is going on at last."[260] But only five of the _Homilies_ were actually printed off at Oxford.[261] The great scheme failed for want of money. Miss Elstob's own fortune was apparently involved, for in 1718 Mr. T. Baker wrote to Hearne that Miss Elstob was "lately gone off for debt."[262] Except these few facts concerning the _Homilies_ very few details are known concerning Miss Elstob's life after 1715. Bishop Smalridge[263] aided her for a time, but she could not endure the thought of being a burden on her friends, and she finally went to Evesham, Worcestershire, where she started a little school. Mr. Tindale, in his _History of Evesham_, says that he was credibly informed that her weekly stipend in this school was at first but a groat a week. She was in this very contracted and difficult way of life for nearly twenty years. When relief came it was as the result of the efforts of an obscure young Anglo-Saxon scholar, Mr. George Ballard, a lady's-stay-maker, who became acquainted with Miss Elstob and described her situation so effectively to one of his customers, a Mrs. Chapone, that this lady wrote a circular letter representing Miss Elstob's extensive learning, her service to literature, her multiplied distresses, her meekness and patience, and sent it to the neighboring gentry. An annuity of twenty guineas was raised, and Miss Elstob was enabled to keep an assistant so that she could again "taste of that food of the mind from which she had been so long oblig'd to fast." Another result of Mrs. Chapone's letter was a possible appointment for Miss Elstob as mistress of a charity school kept up by Lady Elizabeth Hastings. With regard to this plan Miss Elstob wrote the following very interesting letter to Mr. George Ballard: