A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. John W. Cousin
The character of his intellect was notably practical, as is evidenced by the success of his parochial administration and the "Sustentation Fund," devised by him for the support of the ministry of the Free Church. He was D.D., LL.D., D.C.L. (Oxon.), and a Corresponding Member of the Institute of France.
Memoirs (Hanna, 4 vols.). Smaller works by Prof. Blaikie (1897), Mrs. Oliphant (1893), and many others.
CHAMBERLAYNE, WILLIAM (1619–1689).—Poet, practised medicine at Shaftesbury. On the outbreak of the Civil War he joined the Royalists and fought at the second battle of Newbury. He wrote a play, Loves Victory (1658), and an epic Pharonnida (1659). With occasional beauties he is, in the main, heavy and stiff, and is almost forgotten. He influenced Keats.
CHAMBERS, ROBERT (1802–1871).—Historical and scientific writer, was b. at Peebles. Early dependent on his own exertions, he started business as a bookseller in Edin. at the age of 16, devoting all his spare time to study, to such purpose that in 1824 he pub. Traditions of Edinburgh, a work in which he had the assistance of Sir W. Scott. Thereafter he poured forth a continuous stream of books and essays on historical, social, antiquarian, and scientific subjects. He joined his brother William (q.v.) in establishing the publishing firm of W. and R. Chambers, and in starting Chambers's Journal, to which he was a constant contributor. Later ventures were The Cyclopedia of English Literature (1842–44), of which several ed. have appeared (last 1903–6). and Chambers's Cyclopædia (10 vols. 1859–68; new 1888–92). Among his own works may be mentioned Vestiges of Creation, pub. anonymously (1844), a precursor of Darwinism, A Life of Burns (1851), Popular Rhymes of Scotland (1847), History of the Rebellions in Scotland, Domestic Annals of Scotland (1859–61), Ancient Sea Margins (1848), Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen and The Book of Days (1863). He was LL.D. of St. Andrews.
CHAMBERS, WILLIAM (1800–1883).—Publisher and miscellaneous author, b. at Peebles, started in 1832 with his brother Robert (q.v.) Chambers's Journal, and soon after joined him in the firm of W. and R. Chambers. Besides contributions to the Journal he wrote several books, including a History of Peeblesshire (1864), and an autobiography of himself and his brother. C. was a man of great business capacity, and, though of less literary distinction than his brother, did much for the dissemination of cheap and useful literature. He was Lord Provost of Edin. 1865–69, and was an LL.D. of the Univ. of that city. He restored the ancient church of St. Giles there.
CHAMIER, FREDERICK (1796–1870).—Novelist, was in the navy, in which he rose to the rank of Captain. Retiring in 1827, he wrote several sea novels somewhat in the style of Marryat, including Life of a Sailor (1832), Ben Brace, Jack Adams, and Tom Bowling (1841). He also continued James's Naval History, and wrote books of travel.
CHANNING, WILLIAM ELLERY (1780–1842).—American Divine, b. at Newport, Rhode Island, was for a time a minister in the Congregationalist Church, but became the leader of the Unitarians in New England. He had a powerful influence on the thought and literature of his time in America, and was the author of books on Milton and Fénelon, and on social subjects. The elevation and amiability of his character caused him to be held in high esteem. He did not class himself with Unitarians of the school of Priestley, but claimed to "stand aloof from all but those who strive and pray for clearer light."
CHAPMAN, GEORGE (1559–1634).—Dramatist and translator, was b. near Hitchin, and probably ed. at Oxf. and Camb. He wrote many plays, including The Blind Beggar of Alexandria (1596), All Fools (1599), A Humerous Daye's Myrthe (1599), Eastward Hoe (with Jonson), The Gentleman Usher, Monsieur d'Olive, etc. As a dramatist he has humour, and vigour, and occasional poetic fire, but is very unequal. His great work by which he lives in literature is his translation of Homer. The Iliad was pub. in 1611, the Odyssey in 1616, and the Hymns, etc., in 1624. The work is full of energy and spirit, and well maintains its place among the many later translations by men of such high poetic powers as Pope and Cowper, and others: and it had the merit of suggesting Keats's immortal Sonnet, in which its name and memory are embalmed for many who know it in no other way. C. also translated from Petrarch, and completed Marlowe's unfinished Hero and Leander.
CHAPONE, HESTER (MULSO) (1727–1801).—Miscellaneous writer, dau. of a gentleman of Northamptonshire, was m. to a solicitor, who d. a few months afterwards. She was one of the learned ladies who gathered round Mrs. Montague (q.v.), and was the author of Letters on the Improvement of the Mind and Miscellanies.
CHARLETON, WALTER (1619–1707).—Miscellaneous writer, ed. at Oxf., was titular physician to Charles I. He was a copious writer on theology, natural history, and antiquities, and pub. Chorea Gigantum (1663) to prove that Stonehenge was built by the Danes. He was also one of the "character" writers, and in this kind of literature wrote A Brief Discourse concerning the Different Wits of Men (1675).
CHATTERTON, THOMAS (1752–1770).—Poet, b. at Bristol, posthumous s. of a schoolmaster, who had been a man of some reading and antiquarian tastes, after whose death his mother maintained herself and her boy and girl by teaching and needlework. A black-letter Bible and an illuminated music-book belonging to her were the first things to give his mind the impulse which led to such mingled glory and disaster. Living under the shadow of the great church of St. Mary Redcliffe, his mind was impressed from infancy with the beauty of antiquity, he obtained access to the charters deposited there, and he read every scrap of ancient literature that came in his way. At 14 he was apprenticed to a solicitor named Lambert, with whom he lived in sordid circumstances, eating in the kitchen and sleeping with the foot-boy, but continuing his favourite studies in every spare moment. In 1768 a new bridge was opened, and C. contributed to a local newspaper what purported to be a contemporary account of the old one which it superseded. This attracted a good deal of attention. Previously to this he had been writing verses and imitating ancient poems under the name of Thomas Rowley, whom he feigned to be a monk of the 15th century. Hearing of H. Walpole's collections for his Anecdotes of Painting in England, he sent him an "ancient manuscript" containing biographies of certain painters, not hitherto known, who had flourished in England centuries before. W. fell into the trap, and wrote asking for all the MS. he could furnish, and C. in response forwarded accounts of more painters, adding some particulars as to himself on which W., becoming suspicious, submitted the whole to T. Gray and Mason (q.v.), who pronounced the MS. to be forgeries. Some correspondence, angry on C.'s part, ensued, and the whole budget of papers was returned. C. thereafter, having been dismissed by Lambert, went to London, and for a short time his prospects seemed to be bright. He worked with feverish energy, threw off poems, satires, and political papers, and meditated a history of England; but funds and spirits failed, he was starving, and the failure to obtain an appointment as ship's surgeon, for which he had applied, drove him to desperation, and on the morning of August 25, 1770, he was found dead from a dose of arsenic, surrounded by his writings torn into small pieces. From childhood C. had shown a morbid familiarity with the idea of suicide, and had written a last will and testament, "executed in the presence of Omniscience," and full of wild and profane wit. The magnitude of his tragedy is only realised when it is considered not only that the poetry he left was of a high order of originality and imaginative power, but that it was produced at an age at which our greatest poets, had they died, would have remained unknown. Precocious not only in genius but in dissipation, proud and morose as he was, an unsympathetic age confined itself mainly to awarding blame to his literary and moral delinquencies. Posterity has weighed him in a juster balance, and laments the early quenching of so brilliant a light. His coll. works appeared in 1803, and another ed. by Prof. Street in 1875. Among these are Elinoure and Juga, Balade of Charitie, Bristowe Tragedie, Ælla, and Tragedy of Godwin.
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