Notwithstanding the pains which had been taken, and the money which had been spent, the Representative was a failure from the beginning.  It was badly organized, badly edited, and its contents—­leading articles, home and foreign news—­were ill-balanced.  Failing Lockhart, an editor, named Tyndale, had been appointed on short notice, though he was an obscure and uninfluential person.  He soon disappeared in favour of others, who were no better.  Dr. Maginn [Footnote:  Dr. Maginn’s papers in Blackwood are or should be known to the reader.  The Murray correspondence contains many characteristic letters from this jovial and impecunious Irishman.  He is generally supposed to have been the prototype of Thackeray’s Captain Shandon.—­T.M.] had been engaged—­the Morgan O’Doherty of Blackwood’s Magazine—­wit, scholar, and Bohemian.  He was sent to Paris, where he evidently enjoyed himself; but the results, as regarded the Representative, were by no means satisfactory.  He was better at borrowing money than at writing articles.

Mr. S.C.  Hall, one of the parliamentary reporters of the paper, says, in his “Retrospect of a Long Life,” that: 

“The day preceding the issue of the first number, Mr. Murray might have obtained a very large sum for a shore of the copyright, of which he was the sole proprietor; the day after that issue, the copyright was worth comparatively nothing....  Editor there was literally none, from the beginning to the end.  The first number supplied conclusive evidence of the utter ignorance of editorial tact on the part of the person entrusted with the duty....  In short, the work was badly done; if not a snare, it was a delusion; and the reputation of the new journal fell below zero in twenty-four hours.” [Footnote:  “Retrospect of a Long Life, from 1815 to 1883.”  By S.C.  Hall, F.S.A., i. p. 126.]

An inspection of the file of the Representative justifies Mr. Hall’s remarks.  The first number contained an article by Lockhart, four columns in length, on the affairs of Europe.  It was correct and scholar-like, but tame and colourless.  Incorrectness in a leading article may be tolerated, but dulness amounts to a literary crime.  The foreign correspondence consisted of a letter from Valetta, and a communication from Paris, more than a column in length, relating to French opera.  In the matter of news, for which the dailies are principally purchased, the first number was exceedingly defective.  It is hard to judge of the merits of a new journal from the first number, which must necessarily labour under many disadvantages, but the Representative did not from the first exhibit any element of success.

Mr. Murray found his new enterprise an increasing source of annoyance and worry.  His health broke down under the strain, and when he was confined to his bed by illness things went worse from day to day.  The usual publishing business was neglected; letters remained unanswered, manuscripts remained unread, and some correspondents became excessively angry at their communications being neglected.