a brief existence of six months, the _Representative_ gave up the struggle. Murray was wont in future days, when rash young speculators urged the necessity of embracing some opening for a new daily paper, to point to a ledger on his book-shelves and say grimly, “Twenty thousand pounds lie buried there!” The question as to who was the actual editor of the _Representative_ has never been definitely settled. Mr. Disraeli, until the last year, never disclaimed the supposed connection, and silence was considered as proverbially affirmative. Lockhart, too, has been put forward as a claimant. The nearest approach to any opinion that might have been final was given by the late James Hannay in the pages of the _Edinburgh Courant_. “We had the best authority for what we said--nay, the only authority--since even to Mr. Murray the question of the _Representative’s_ editorship is not a personal one. We now add that Mr. Disraeli’s long silence in the matter admits of an explanation which will gratify his admirers of all parties. He hesitated to come forward with any eagerness to make a denial, which might have been interpreted as springing from a wish to disclaim newspaper association, but when the story was passing into literature in such a book as the biography of an eminent British writer, it was time to protest against any further propagation of the story, once and for all.” But this “best and only authority” did nothing to render the question less intricate, for when Mr. Grant published the first instalment of his “History of the Newspaper Press,” he thoroughly outdid Hannay, and with that ingenuous facility of arbitrating over moot points, and that mysterious power of catching rumours, as boys catch moths, and pinning them down in his collection under the general label of “facts,” gave full details of Mr. Disraeli’s connection with the _Representative_, the amount of his salary, together with a luxurious description of the splendours of his editorial offices! Mr. Disraeli roused at last, replied curtly that the whole narrative was entirely imaginary, and utterly devoid of fact or foundation in any one point. He has since then in a letter, upon a similar question, written by his solicitor to the _Leisure Hour_, declared that:-- “Mr. Disraeli never in his life required or received any remuneration for anything he ever wrote, except for books bearing his name. “Mr. Disraeli never was editor of the _Star Chamber_, or any other newspaper, journal, review, or magazine, or anything else.” To return, however, to legitimate book-publishing. About this time Campbell’s old scheme of “Biographies of the Poets” was revived, re-appearing under the title of “Specimens of the British Poets;” and Murray was so pleased with the work that he made the stipulated sum of £500 into double that amount. To Allen Cunningham, too, he gave £50 per volume additional for his “Lives of the British Artists,” and made the payment retrospective.