CHAMBERS, Ephraim, an English author, was born at Kendal, Westmoreland, in the latter part of the 17th century. He was apprenticed to a globe-maker, but having conceived the plan of his Cyclopaedia, he left this business, and devoted himself entirely to writing. The first edition of the Cyclopaedia, which was the result of many years’ intense application, appeared by subscription in 1728, in two vols. fol. It was dedicated to the king, and procured for Mr Chambers the honour of being elected fellow of the Royal Society. In less than ten years a second edition was printed, with corrections and additions (in 1738); and this was followed by a third a year later. In addition to the Cydopaedia, Mr Chambers wrote for the Literary Magazine, and translated the History and Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris (1742), and the Jesuits Perspective. He died in 1740....
CHAMBERS, George (1803-1840), a marine painter, born at Whitby, Yorkshire, was the son of a seaman, and for several years he pursued his father’s calling. While at sea he was in the habit of sketching the different classes of vessels. His master, observing this, gratified him by cancelling his indentures, and thus set him free to follow his natural bent. Chambers then apprenticed himself to an old woman who kept a painter’s shop in Whitby, and began by house-painting. He also took lessons of a drawing-master, and found a ready sale for small and cheap pictures of shipping. Coming afterwards to London, he was employed by Thomas Horner to assist in painting the great panorama of London for the Colosseum (the exhibition building in the Regent’s Park, recently demolished), and he next became scene-painter at the Pavilion Theatre. In 1834 he was elected an associate, and in 1836 a full member, of the Watercolour Society. His best works represent naval battles. Two of these—the Bombardment of Algiers in 1836, and the Capture of Porto Bello—are in Greenwich Hospital. Not long before his death he was introduced to William IV., and his professional prospects brightened; but his constitution, always frail, gave way, and brought him to an early grave. He died on the 28th October 1840. A Life of him, by John Watkins, was published in 1841.
CHAMBERS, Robert (1802-1871), author and publisher, distinguished especially for his services to popular literature, was born at Peebles on the 10th July 1802. His parents were of the middle class, but owing to the father’s misfortunes in business the family were reduced to poverty, and had to leave Peebles for Edinburgh while Robert was still young. He had before that received such an education as the parish and grammar schools of his native place afforded, and had shown himself possessed of unusual literary taste and ability. A small circulating library in the town, and a copy of the first edition of the Encyclopoedia Britannica which his father had purchased, furnished him with stores of reading of which he eagerly availed himself. Long afterwards he wrote of his early years—“Books, not playthings, filled my hands in childhood. At twelve I was deep, not only in poetry and fiction, but in encyclopaedias.”
In Edinburgh the family had a somewhat hard struggle with their straitened Circumstances. Robert had been destined by a sort of tacit understanding for the church, and was placed for a time at a classical school with a view to his being sent to the university. This design had, however, to be abandoned. After enduring many hardships, and making two unsuccessful attempts to fill situations in mercantile houses in Leith, he commenced business on his own account as a bookstall-keeper in Leith Walk, on the advice of his elder brother and future partner, William. He was then only sixteen, and his whole stock consisted of a few old books belonging to his father. By slow degrees the stock was increased and the business extended. A similar but distinct concern was carried on during the same period with like success by William, and after a number of years the two brothers were united as partners in the now well-known publishing firm of W. and R. Chambers.
From the commencement of his residence in Edinburgh, Robert Chambers had shown an enthusiastic interest in the history and antiquities of the city. In frequent rambles every feature of its ancient buildings grew familiar to him, and his mind became a storehouse for all sorts of information connected with its famous persons and places. He thus found a most congenial task in the publication of the Traditions of Edinburgh (1823-4), which, though not his first work, was the first which brought him into general notice. It secured for him the approval, and what he doubtless valued even more highly, the personal friendship of Sir Walter Scott, then in the zenith of his fame. Other works on kindred subjects followed in rapid succession, the most popular and important being a History of the Rebellion of 1745. He also wrote from time to time a number of short poetical pieces of very considerable merit, which were afterwards collected and printed for private circulation (1835). For a year or two he acted as editor of the Edinburgh Advertiser, a Tory newspaper of old standing, which has now ceased to appear. With commendable and characteristic prudence the bookselling business was diligently prosecuted in the midst of these numerous literary engagements, so that his life at this period was one of ceaseless activity.
In the beginning of 1832 his brother William, after consultation with him, started a weekly publication under the title of Chambers’8 Journal, which speedily attained an immense circulation, and still holds a leading place in the cheap popular periodical literature of which it was the pioneer. Robert’s connection with it was at first only that of a contributor. After fourteen numbers had appeared, however, he became associated with his brother as jointeditor, and from that period he wrote for it nearly all the leading articles, which took the form of essays—moral, familiar, and humorous. Written in an easy, graceful style, entirely free from any affectation of condescension, always interesting, and carefully avoiding the debateable ground of religion and politics, they contributed more perhaps than anything else to the remarkable success of the Journal. A number of them were republished in 1847 in the author’s Select Writings, and are thought to be on the whole the best specimens of his original work. Of the same character as his work for the Journal were his numerous contributions to the Information for the People and the Miscellany of Useful and Entertaining Tracts published by his firm.
Among the other works of which he was in whole or in part the author, the Cyclopaedia of English Literature, the Life and Writings of Burns, Ancient Sea Margins, the Domestic Annals of Scotland, and the Book of Days were the most important. The Cyclopaedia of English Literature contained a series of admirably selected extracts from the best authors of every period, “set in a biographical and critical history of the literature itself.” The biographies were gracefully written, and the critical estimates, though brief, were just and comprehensive. For the Life of Burns he made diligent and laborious original investigations, gathering many hitherto unrecorded facts from the surviving acquaintances of the poet, and especially from his sister, Mrs Begg, to whose benefit the whole profits of the work were generously devoted. The poems are interwoven into the narrative in their proper chronological order, and with a the information that could be obtained as to the circumstances of their composition. In connection with the work on Ancient Sea Margins, it may be mentioned that its author ranked high as a scientific geologist, and that he had availed himself of tours in Scandinavia and Canada for the purpose of geological exploration. His knowledge of geology was one of the principal grounds on which the authorship of the celebrated anonymous work, The Vestiges of the Creation, was very generally attributed to him. As, however, neither he himself nor any one entitled to speak for him ever acknowledged the work, its authorship remains a mystery. The Book of Days was his last publication, and perhaps his most elaborate. Help on which he had depended having failed him, he was left to do the work almost alone, and it is supposed that his excessive labour in connection with it hastened his end. He died at St Andrews, where he had built a pleasant residence for himself several years previously, on the 17th March 1871. Two years before his death the university of St Andrews had conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws, in consideration of his distinguished literary merit, and he was a fellow of several learned societies. As a writer Chambers possessed in very harmonious combination most of the qualities which form the basis of a sound and lasting popularity. Few even of popular authors ever possessed in a higher degree the faculty of interesting without resorting to sensation, of amusing without stooping to frivolity, and of instructing without assuming superiority. Few have done more than he for the illustration of Scottish life and character, and for the preservation of what was curious in Scottish tradition and antiquities. But it will always be his highest claim to distinction that he did as much as, if not more than, any other single man to give a healthy tone and a pure moral influence to the cheap popular literature which has become so important a factor in modern civilization. An interesting account of the life of Robert Chambers by his brother appeared in 1872, under the title, Memoir of Robert Chambers: With Autobiographic Reminiscences of William Chambers. (w. B. s.)
