“An architect of great skill and experience was wont to say, that he found less difficulty in giving the plan of a gentleman’s seat than in devising a lodge for the termination of his avenue. We are much mistaken if a similar difficulty has not been felt by most periodical essayists. The first appearance before the public is like the entrance of a bashful person into a ceremonious company, and in both cases the French proverb applies, _Ce n’est que le premier pas qui coûte._ And how often have we seen such a person, qualified both to entertain and enjoy society, suffering during a whole evening under the too acute feeling of some awkwardness or inadvertent solecism, which he supposes himself to have committed on his first entrance. But the case of the essayist is still harder. The utmost that can be expected from a member of fashionable society is, that he shall present himself with the ordinary ease and grace of men of good breeding; and those who affect peculiarity, or marked singularity of manners, are in our day, as in Congreve’s, set down among the Lord Froths and Mr. Brisks, the solemn or lively coxcombs of society. But here the metaphor no longer holds; for, in this department of literature, mediocrity, however void of affectation, or even if marked by elegance, is insufficient to produce any impression on the public. It is expected of us, not only that we should be eloquent, but that we shall be new; not only that we should be correct, but that we shall be striking; and that our lucubrations should promise to combine originality with the humour of Addison, the learning of Cumberland, and the pathos of the Man of Feeling. Aware of the difficulty, not indeed of making such promises, but of giving the public any sound reason to think that it was in our power to keep them, we were somewhat tempted to elude the task of announcing our pretensions in an opening number; and, like the worthy Irishman, who, on finding the second month of attendance at the fencing-school was rated at a lower fee than that which preceded it, requested to take the second month first, we had half resolved to publish No. II. of THE SALE ROOM before No. I.” This opening Essay was signed C. for Coryphæus, the name given to the presiding genius of the contributors to the periodical. It continued for twenty-eight numbers, the last being issued on Saturday, July 12, 1817. It consisted of weekly essays of varying length of from six to eight pages, and, when the subject matter was only sufficient to fill six or seven, the remaining pages were left blank.[21] John Ballantyne was much in request as musical critic on the _Edinburgh Weekly Journal_, of which his brother James was editor. He also made at least one excursion into the field of letters. This was a novel in two volumes called “The Widow’s Lodgings.” It had little merit, but reached a second edition.