of men of commerce in the City; however, he was by no means successful.
Nevertheless, Mr. Murray was so far committed that he felt bound to go
on with the enterprise, and he advertised the publication of the new
morning paper. Some of his friends congratulated him on the
announcement, trusting that they might see on their breakfast-table a
paper which their wives and daughters might read without a blush.

The first number of the _Representative_ accordingly appeared on January
25, 1826, price 7_d_.; the Stamp Tax was then 4_d_. In politics it was a
supporter of Lord Liverpool's Government; but public distress, the
currency, trade and commerce were subjects of independent comment.

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 Lon