commence legitimate work at higher branches of art. He takes lessons of a drawing-master at Whitby, Bird by name, and paints, and sells for anything he can get, small pictures of shipping subjects. For three years he went on in this way; his love of art growing and swelling within him all the while. He never despaired, but he longed for a wider field of chances; he burned to come to London. But the money? There was but one way. The sailor was called in to aid the artist. He worked his way before the mast in a brig trading between Whitby and London. And now fortune took him by the hand. He obtained an introduction to Mr. Thomas Horner, and was employed for seven years to assist in painting the Panorama of London at the Colosseum, Regent's Park. Then he is appointed scene painter at the Pavilion theatre. Admiral Lord Mark Kerr notices him, and introduces him to King William the Fourth. That urbane monarch does not know which to applaud the most—the painter or the seaman. Chambers now stood fair to establish, on secure foundations, both fame and fortune. Unhappily his strength gave way. His health, never good, had been keenly tried by the vicissitudes of his career. Mind and body suffered. He gradually sunk, and died in 1840. His best works are his naval battles. Three of these decorate the hall of Greenwich hospital; all are very spirited. Collectors set a high price upon pictures of this nature by Chambers.—W. T.
CHAMBERS, Sir Robert, chief justice of the supreme court of judicature in Bengal, born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1737; died at Paris in 1803. Educated at Oxford, he was chosen in 1754 an exhibitioner of Lincoln college; shortly afterwards became a fellow of University college; in 1762 was elected by the university Vinerian professor of the laws of England, and in 1766, on the nomination of the Earl of Lichfield, obtained the appointment of principal of New Inn Hall. In 1774 he went to Bengal as second judge in the superior court; in 1778 received the honour of knighthood; and in 1791 was advanced to the dignity of chief justice. In 1799 the state of his health obliged him to return to England, which he quitted in 1802 to winter in France, where his honourable and useful career was terminated by a paralytic seizure in 1803. He left a large collection of Oriental MSS.—J. S., G.
CHAMBERS, Sir William, a distinguished architect, born at Stockholm in 1726. He was of Scotch descent, and when only two years old, was brought to England. He made a voyage to China in the service of the Swedish East India Company, but did not long continue in commercial life, for, at the age of eighteen, he seems to have become an architect and draughtsman in London. He was soon appointed to teach the prince of Wales, afterwards George III., the elements of architecture. This laid the foundation of his fame and fortune, for after the accession of that prince, he was employed to lay out the gardens at Kew. Before receiving that appointment, he had published in 1759, "Designs for Chinese Buildings," and a "Treatise on Civil Architecture;" and after entering on his duties, he issued in 1765, "Plans, Elevations, Sections, and Perspective Views of the Gardens and Buildings at Kew." Both in his writings and his designs he showed a peculiar predilection for the Chinese mode, both of architecture and gardening. In 1771 he was made a knight of the Swedish order of the polar star, and in the following year published "A Dissertation on Oriental Gardening," which attracted much attention, and called forth a clever satire, attributed to Mason the poet. Of the many buildings with the execution of which he was intrusted, the most important were Somerset Place (never completed); the seat of the marquis of Abercorn, near Edinburgh; and Milton Abbey, Dorsetshire. He died in 1796.—J. B.
CHAMBERS, William Frederick, a distinguished physician, born in India in the year 1786. He was the eldest son of William Chambers, Esq., a gentleman in the civil service of the East India Company, and a distinguished oriental scholar. He received his early education at the grammar school at Bath, and was afterwards transferred to Westminster, and from thence to Trinity college, Cambridge. He then entered at the Windmill Street school of medicine, London, at the head of which was Mr. Wilson, and studied there for some time. Having taken the degree of M.A. at Cambridge, he went to Edinburgh, and spent a year there in diligent attendance upon the various lectures of that school. On his return to London he placed himself under the tuition of Dr. Bateman and Dr. Laird, at the Bishop's Court dispensary, Lincoln's inn. He afterwards enrolled himself as a pupil at St. George's hospital, and studied at the Eye infirmary, under Dr. Farre, and Messrs. Travers and Lawrence. While at St. George's he became a licentiate of Cambridge, and commenced practice at Dover Street. In 1816, when Dr. Chambers was just thirty years of age, he was appointed full physician to St. George's hospital. About the same time he graduated at Cambridge. In 1819 he was appointed, on the resignation of Dr. Dick, to the office of examining physician to the East India Company. In 1820 he married his first cousin. Miss Frazer, by whom he had two sons and two daughters. In 1822 he was appointed one of the censors of the College of Physicians. He had also been elected honorary physician to the Lock hospital, an office he held for some years, and resigned in 1827. In 1836 he was gazetted physician in ordinary to the queen. Upon the illness of the king in the following May, he was appointed physician in ordinary to his majesty, William IV., who created him K.C.H., but allowed him to decline the honour of ordinary knighthood, which had until that time been considered a necessary accompaniment of the commandership of the Guelphic order. On the accession of Queen Victoria, he was gazetted one of the physicians in ordinary, and in 1839 he was appointed physician in ordinary to the duchess of Kent. In 1835 he resigned the office of physician to the Hon. East India Company, and about 1837 he ceased to lecture. In 1839 he resigned the post of physician to St. George's hospital, with which he had been so long and so honourably connected. From the year 1836 Dr. Chambers' annual professional income ranged for many years between seven and nine thousand pounds, and it kept up to its full point even in the year of his temporary retirement through illness in 1848. In the year 1850 he was obliged to retire from the active duties of his profession, from the existence of that disease of the brain which was destined to terminate his earthly career, and of which he died on Monday, the 15th of December, 1855. Dr. Chambers was by no means a voluminous author. Lectures on medical subjects, published in the Lancet and Medical Gazette, formed the bulk of his literary labours. Nevertheless he was a great writer. From the time he began practice, he regularly made clear and concise memoranda in Latin respecting every case which came before him, and kept a copy of every prescription given to his patients. The books he used for this purpose were quarto volumes of about four hundred pages each. At the time of his retirement there existed sixty-seven of these valuable volumes, besides numerous thinner quartos, in the shape of indices. This labour frequently occupied him until the night was far spent, when he would seek a short rest, to begin work again between eight and nine o'clock in the morning. To these extensive notes he would add sketches of his patients and their maladies, and it was with the most painstaking assiduity that each case was investigated and recorded—not for public reputation and display, but from a conscientious desire to satisfy his own mind that all was done that was possible in each particular case, numerous as they were. We see in this thorough performance of duty the great secret of Dr. Chambers' unrivalled success as a London physician, which could neither have arisen nor been maintained by merely fortuitous circumstances.—E. L.
* CHAMBERS, William and Robert, two Scottish authors and publishers, who have contributed greatly to the diffusion of literature among the common people. They are natives of Peebles, and the former was born in 1800, the latter in 1802. Having at an early age been thrown upon their own resources, they removed to Edinburgh, and opened two small bookshops in Leith Walk. William also taught himself the art of printing, and being unable to pay for assistance, continued to work for some years as his own compositor and pressman, often toiling half the night at his handpress. The brothers early displayed a taste for Scottish literature, and in 1824 appeared Robert's first work, entitled "The Traditions of Edinburgh"—a popular and exceedingly interesting handbook of the antiquities, and local traditions, of the ancient capital of Scotland. This was followed in 1826 by a curious and most agreeable volume entitled "Popular Rhymes of Scotland," and in the following year by "The Picture of Scotland," in 2 vols. The "History of the Scottish Rebellions of 1638, 1715, and 1745," and "A Life of James I.," followed, in successive volumes of Constable's Miscellany; and three volumes of "Scottish Songs and Ballads, with Annotations." Robert also edited a Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotchmen, in 4 vols. Meanwhile William was engaged in the preparation of an elaborate work, entitled "The Book of
