Not only were Blackwood’s “enemies” discomforted, but even his friends were sore dismayed. The first number of _Blackwood_ bore the imprint of John Murray, but the “Caldee MS.” caused him to withdraw his name, but after passing through the hands of three different London agents, the sixth again appeared under his countenance. This number, however, contained some unpalatable strictures on Gifford and the _Quarterly Reviewers_, and the Albemarle Street patronage was again withdrawn, only to be renewed in the eleventh number; but by the time it reached the seventeenth he washed his hands of it entirely, and in future it appeared without the ornamental appendage of any London bookseller’s name; the agency, distinctly one of sale only, was given to Cadell and Davies, who found it profitable enough to occupy the greater part of their attention. Cadell, naturally as nervous as Murray of giving, or being in any way instrumental in giving, offence, kept a stereotyped reply in readiness for any angry victim who rushed into his shop for redress--“I know nothing of the contents of the magazine; I am merely the carrier of a certain portion of its circulation to its English readers.” From the commencement of the new series--from the foundation that is of _Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine_--Blackwood’s fortunes and even the story of his life are inextricably bound up in the progress of the periodical; for he did not again, once he had got rid of Pringle and Cleghorne, entrust its charge and conduct to the care of any editor. For a long time Wilson was supposed to occupy the editorial chair. This supposition is treated in a letter, printed by his daughter: “Of _Blackwood_ I am not the editor, although I believe I very generally got both the credit and discredit of being Christopher North. I am one of the chief writers, perhaps the chief writer, but never received one shilling from the proprietor, except for my own compositions. Being generally on the spot, I am always willing to give him my advice, and to supply such articles as are most wanted, when I have leisure.” “From an early period of its progress,” says Lockhart, speaking of Blackwood and the magazine, “it engrossed a very large share of his time; and though he scarcely ever wrote for its pages himself (three articles, we believe, he did contribute), the general management and arrangement of it, with the very extensive literary correspondence which this involved, and the constant superintendence of the press, would have been more than enough to occupy entirely any man but one of his first-rate energies.”