No. I.]

SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1817.

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 coute. And how often have we seen such a person, qualified both to enjoy and to entertain 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 sin

gularity 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.

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 should be new; not only that we should be correct, but that we should 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 said second month first, we had half-resolved to publish No. II. of THE SALE-ROOM before No. I.

We conceived that we might be the more easily justified in the omission of all preliminary matter, (the concoction of which is attended with such difficulties,) since it is not our intention to introduce any dramatis personæ, or even to assume any marked or peculiar personage as the supposed author of our essays. We are not ignorant of the charm which the reader receives from the congruity between the moral sentiments or opinions delivered in such lucubrations, and the character and habits of the supposed author; and we feel what weight precepts of conduct derive from the authority of Nestor Ironside, or observations on manners from that of the philosophical Spectator, who, never mingling in society or conversation, was solely occupied in marking and recording what was worthy of notice. But that spring of interest has been so often successfully employed that its force is now weakened, and whatever character we could with priety produce as our representative and prolocutor, would inevitably remind the reader of some original portrait, designed with greater spirit, or finished with more elegant accuracy. Our Essays will, then, be impersonal in the diction, unless when we are favoured with communications from correspondents, who will, of course, speak in their own real or assumed characters.

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Relieved, therefore, from the necessity of announcing a supposed editor, it did not seem of greater importance to us to enlarge upon our reasons for assuming a title so different from those adopted upon si

milar occasions. We might indeed be satisfied with referring to the place of publication, as sufficiently warranting our titlepage; but we may add, that it will also be vindicated by the miscellaneous nature of the materials which we have collected and arranged, with the hope of meriting a share of public favour and patronage. Our design is, to collect in our hebdomadal reservoir such scattered rills of literature as are not already diverted into channels of greater consequence; and were we as sure of escaping the exception as we are desirous to extend our plan to what is unexcepted, we would willingly adopt the maxim of Vol. taire, tout genre est permis hors le genre ennuyeux. Therefore, as the Salesman's rooms contain articles the most inconsistent with each other, and yet arranged side by side, and all designed for the use of the public, our papers will, on the same principle, boast an equal variety; and as a Dutch grotesque may happen to be hung next to a scripturepiece, or a Chinese joss placed by the side of an Etruscan vase, we shall not hesitate to blend the ludicrous with the serious, or relieve historical dissertation by the more whimsical researches of the local antiquary. Like the Sale-Room in another respect, although it may seldom or never be our lot to present to the public pictures of firstrate value by Claude and Raphael, yet we trust there trust there may remain between that unattainable point of perfection, and the opposite extreme of productions deservedly contemptible, various points of excellence that may be reached, some by the patient labour which supplies by power of finishing the lack of creative genius, and some by the hasty efforts of those who possess the talent, without the time or patience, necessary to make pictures out of their rough sketches,