ABSTRACT
Mr Ballantyne had settled in Kelso as a solicitor in 1795; but not immediately obtaining much professional practice, time hung heavy on his hands, and he willingly listened, in the summer of 1796, to a proposal of some of the neighbouring nobility and gentry respecting the establishment of a weekly newspaper. He undertook the printing and editing of this new journal, and proceeded to London, in order to engage correspondents and make other necessary preparations. While thus for the first time in the metropolis, he happened to meet with two authors, whose reputations were then in full bloom—namely, Thomas Holcroft and William Godwin—the former a popular dramatist and novelist; the latter, a novelist of far greater merit, but “still more importantly distinguished”. Both these eminent authors were distinguished by the clearness of their elocution, and very full of triumphant confidence in the truth of their systems.
