William Chambers was toiling away busily in his little shop in the Broughton suburb—writing, printing, and selling books. After some minor efforts at authorship, he wrote the “Book of Scotland,” giving an account of the legal constitution and customs of his native country. This was followed by the “Gazetteer of Scotland,” written in conjunction with his brother, which, from the then scanty printed material at their disposal, must have cost them an immensity of labour.
In 1832 came the turning point of the cause of the two brothers. The struggle for parliamentary reform had awakened a necessity for the spread of education. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge had already been doing good service to the cause, with Lord Brougham as its president, and Charles Knight as its manager. And on the 4th of February, 1832, appeared the first number of Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal. Mr. William Chambers has himself, in a letter to the editor of the Athenæum (April 1st, 1871), replied to a statement in a former number, that upon seeing a copy of the prospectus of the Penny Magazine, he put forward several suggestions to one of the chief promoters, and that his self-love being wounded by receiving no reply to his letter, he determined to realize his unappreciated ideas himself. The following, in his own letter, is, of course, the accurate history of the origin of the periodical.
“In the beginning of January, 1832, I conceived the idea of a cheap weekly periodical devoted to wholesome popular instruction, blended with original amusing matter, without any knowledge whatever of the prospectus of the Penny Magazine, or even hearing that such a thing was in contemplation. My periodical was to be entitled Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, and the first number was to appear on the 4th of February. In compliment to Lord Brougham as an educationist, I forwarded to him a copy of my prospectus, with a note explaining the nature of my attempt to aid as far as I was able in the great cause with which his name was identified. To this communication I received no acknowledgment, but no self-love was wounded. My work was successful, and I was too busy to give any consideration as to what his lordship thought of it, if he thought of it at all. The first time I heard of the projected Penny Magazine was about a month after the Journal was set on foot and in general circulation.”
The success of the new Journal was unprecedented; it immediately obtained a circulation of 50,000, and by 1845, when the folio, after a trial of the quarto, was exchanged for the octavo form, 90,000 copies were required to supply the demand. Started six weeks before the Penny Magazine, it is still the most successful and the most instructive of the cheap hebdomadal periodicals. At the very first flush of success, Robert Chambers’ assistance was called in as editor, and in a short time the brothers finally entered into partnership as publishers; and their triumphs were henceforth achieved conjointly—“both of them,” says an able writer in an old number of the Dublin University Magazine, “trained to habits of business and punctuality; both of them upheld in all their dealings by strict prudence and conscientiousness; and both of them practised, according to their different aims and tendencies, in literary labour.”
Seldom, if ever, have two members of a publishing firm been so admirably fitted for their business.
From the very outset the brothers were thrown entirely on their own resources; they had no literary jealousy, and eagerly enlisted on their staff most of the young aspirants in Scotland, who have since achieved a world-wide reputation. It was, however, to Mr. Robert Chambers’ contributions that the Journal was primarily indebted for success, his delightful essays, æsthetic and humorous, permanently fixing the work in public esteem. Gifted with a keenly-accurate observation, with a grave yet kindly humour, his vignettes of life and character, under the nom de plume of Mr. Baldestone, were so truthful and so “telling,” that they met with a very favourable reception, when republished separately, in seven volumes, in 1844. “It was my design,” he says in the preface, “from the first, to be the essayist of the middle class—that in which I was born and to which I continue to belong. I, therefore, do not treat their manners and habits as one looking de haut en bas, which is the usual style of essayists, but as one looking round among the firesides of my friends.” This was, doubtless, the primary secret of their success.
When Leigh Hunt, in 1834, established his London Journal, he announced that he intended to follow the plan of Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, “with a more southern element” added. This compliment, from a veteran so famous and so experienced, led to an interchange of editorial courtesies, in the course of which Robert Chambers claimed the distinction for his brother William—which had been somewhere awarded to Leigh Hunt—of having been the first to introduce cheap periodical literature of a superior class. Leigh Hunt, in reply, while upholding his own title to priority by the indubitable evidence of the dates of his Indicator, Tatler, &c., cordially admitted that his young rivals had more wisely achieved the desired end by interesting a wider and less educated public.
In a few years all Edinburgh proved to be equal only to produce the Scotch edition of the Journal, a branch house was established in the English metropolis, the command of which was entrusted to a younger brother, Mr. David Chambers, who was born in the year 1820, and who was afterwards taken into partnership. Unlike his brothers, he had little taste for literature. In connection with the subsequent conduct of the Journal, we may mention the names of T. Smibert and Leich Ritchie (both deceased), and Mr. W. H. Wills, and Mr. James Payn, the sensational novelist, who for many years has had the leading conduct.
In 1844, Robert Chambers published a work written in conjunction with Dr. Carruthers, afterwards greatly enlarged, which takes a far higher rank than any preceding compilation of a similar character. This was Chambers’ “Cyclopædia of English Literature,” in which no less than 832 authors are treated critically and biographically, specimens of their most characteristic writings being quoted in addition. From the intrinsic value of the contents, and the marvellous cheapness of the price, a great popularity was attained, and in a few years 130,000 copies were sold in England alone, while in America it was at least as popular.
Among his other works at this period we may mention a labour of love—a chronological edition of Burns’ poems, so arranged with a connecting narrative as to serve also as a biography. The proceeds of the sale went towards securing a comfortable fortune for the poet’s sister. We must mention, also, in passing, “The Domestic Annals of Scotland,” and a dainty little volume of verse, printed for private circulation only, in 1835.