Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/272

236 236 CHAMBERS, KNIGHT, AND CASSELL. of the Tweed, on loth July, 1802, two years later than his brother William, with whom his whole career is intimately connected. They were the sons of James Chambers, at one time a prosperous muslin weaver, employing some hundred looms. Their father is described as " a lover of books, a keen poli- tician, and an open-hearted friend ;" but having already been generous beyond his means to the poor French prisoners in Scotland, he was completely ruined by the introduction of machine- weaving looms, and was compelled to sell his modest patrimony, and remove with his family to Edinburgh, with only a few shillings in his pocket on which to start life afresh. But before this the young lads' education had com- menced. At Peebles there were certainly no news- papers ; but their old nurse sung ballads and told them legendary stories of the former exploits of the warriors of the country side ; and then there was old Tarn Fleck, a host in himself, who had struck out a wandering profession of his own, a " flichty chield," who went about with a translation of Josephus (Lestrange, 1720) from house to house. " Weel, Tarn, what's the news the nicht ?" would one of the neigh- bours say, as Tarn entered with the ponderous volume under his arm. " Bad news, bad news/' replied Tarn. " Titus has begun to besiege Jerusalem it's gaun to be a terrible business." At the little village school, too, William was introduced to Latin for the fee of five shillings a quarter, and Robert was well grounded by Mr. Gray in English for two shillings and twopence. Robert was a quiet, self-contained boy, unable from a painful weakness in his feet to join heartily in the usual games of his schoolfellows. " Books," he writes in the preface to his collected works, " not playthings,