There is no positive evidence that it was acted, although clearly written for the stage (Genest, x. 116). 3. 'Jocabella, or a Cabinet of Conceits. Whereunto are added epigrams and other poems, by R. C.,' London, 1640, dedicated to John Wild. The 'merry conceits' — 439 in number — are of the usual character. One (391) relates a poor joke in Shakespeare's 'Works;' another is headed 'On mr. Nabbes, his Comedie called the Bride;' and a third concerns ' the Swinesfac't Lady.'
Mr. W. C. Hazlitt attributes to Chamberlain three other anonymous collections of jests: 'The Booke of Bvlls, Baited with two centuries of Bold Jests and Nimble Lies, . . . collected by A. S., gent.,' London, 1636;' A New Booke of Mistakes, or Bulls with Tales and Bulls without Tales,' London, 1637; and 'Conceits, Clinches, Flashes, and Whimzies,' London, 1639. These books were all published by Chamberlain's own publisher, Daniel Frere, of Little Britain. The 'Booke of Bulls' contains commendatory lines signed 'R. C.,gent.,' i.e. probably Chamberlain himself, and it is on the whole unlikely that Chamberlain was the compiler. Of the second book the same may be said. But the third book, the 'Conceits, which has been frequently attributed to John Taylor, the Water-poet, contains commendatx)ry lines from the pen of Chamberlain's friend, Rawlins, and resembles the 'Jocabella' in sufficiently numerous points to support the conclusion that it was a first edition of Chamberlain's acknowledged jestbook. It was reprinted by Mr. J. O. Halliwell-Phillippe in 1860, and by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt in his 'Old English Jest Books' (iii.) in 1864. In the Luttrell Collection of Broadsides at the British Museum is a sheet of verse justifying the restoration of the established clergy, signed 'Rob. Chamberlaine' and entitled 'Balaam's Asse Cudgeld, or the Cry of Town and Country against Scandalous and Seditious Scriblers,' London, 1661. A sheet of verse (by William Cook) written in reply, was entitled 'A Dose for Chamberlain and a Pill for the Doctor,' 1661.
Chamberlain contributed commendatory verses to Nabbes's 'Spring's Glory,' 1638; to Rawlins's tragedy of ' The Rebellion,' 1640; to Tatham's 'Fancies Theatre,' 1640; and to Leonard Blunt's 'Asse upon Asse,' 1661. He has been erroneously credited by Wood and others with the authorship of Phineas Fletcher's 'Sicelides, a Pastoral,' 1633.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, ii. 675; Corser's Collectanea (Chetham Soc.); Brit. Mus. Cat.; Huth Library Cat.; W. C. Huzlitt's Handbook to English Literature.]
CHAMBERLAIN, ROBERT (fl. 1678), arithmetician, living in London, in Northumberland Alley, Fenchurch Street, on 22 Oct. 1678, was then an 'accomptant and practitioner of the mathematicks.' He may have been the Robert Chamberlain who entered the Merchant Taylors' School on 13 June 1632 (Robinson, Reg. of Mer. Taylors' School, i. 170). Having been in business in Virginia and at home, ne published in 1679 'The Accomptant's Guide, or Merchant's Book-keeper . . . with Tables for the reducing of Flemish Ells into English, and English into Flemish, . . . Also . . . Tables of Exchange . . . with a Journal or Ledger,' &c. In 1679 he also published ' A Plaine and Easie Explanation of the most Useful and Necessary Art of Arithmetick in Whole Numbers and Fractions . . . whereunto are added Rules and Tables of Interest, Rebate, Purchases, Gaging of Cask, and Extraction of the Square and Cube Roots. Composed by Robert Chamberlain, Accomptant and Practitioner in the Mathematicks;' also called 'Chamberlain's Arithmetick.' His ' effigies ' was engraved by Binneman to appear as frontispiece to his books, and an anonymous admirer wrote six lines of verse for it, given by Granger (Biog. Hist. iv. 102). Bromley, in his ' Catalogue of Portraits ' (p. 188), appears to record that Chamberlain died in 1696.
[Chamberlain's Accomptant's Guide, and his Arithmetick, their Dedications, addresses to the Header, Frontispieces, and Title-pages; Bromley's Cat. of Portraits, p. 188.]
CHAMBERLAIN, ROBERT (d. 1798?), ceramist, is stated to have been the first apprentice of the original Worcester Porcelain Company, founded by Dr. Wall in 1761. In 1776 Dr. Wall died, and in 1783 this factory, after various changes of ownership, was bought by Mr. T. Flight. Chamberlain thereupon severed his connection with the firm, and in 1786, with his son Humphrey, started business on his own account, under the style of Chamberlain & Son. The two factories remained in rivalry until 1840, when they were amalgamated, and a joint-stock company formed to carry them on. With regard to Humphrey Chamberlain, here said to have been the son of Robert Chamberlain, there is some confusion. He is stated by Mr. Chaffers to have been the brother. Mr. Binns does not make the matter clearer. Humphrey Chamberlain, sen., died in 1841, being then seventy-nine years old. He therefore was born in 1762. Robert Chamberlain was apprenticed in 1751, and must consequently have been at least twenty years older than Humphrey. The fact that the firm was
