Chapter Chambers to Chatterton of C by Biographical Dictionary of English Literature

Chambers to Chatterton

Chambers, William (1800-1883).—Publisher and miscellaneous author, born at Peebles, started in 1832 with his brother Robert (q.v.) Chambers’s Journal, and soon after joined him in the firm of William 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. Chambers 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 Edinburgh 1865-69, and was an LL.D. of the University 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, born 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 born near Hitchin, and probably educated at Oxford and Cambridge 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 published 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. Chapman also translated from Petrarch, and completed Marlowe’s unfinished Hero and Leander.

Chapone, Hester (Mulso) (1727-1801).—Miscellaneous writer, daughter of a gentleman of Northamptonshire, was married to a solicitor, who died 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, educated at Oxford, was titular physician to Charles I. He was a copious writer on theology, natural history, and antiquities, and published 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, born at Bristol, posthumous son 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 blackletter 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 Chatterton 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