Page:A history of booksellers, the old and the new.djvu/279

241 CHAMBERS, KNIGHT, AND CASSELL. 241 the author to the kindly notice of several literary men, and gaining him the friendship of Scott, still the anonymous " Wizard of the North," who mentions him in his diary as " a clever young fellow, but spoils himself by too much haste." In the following year, when he was still only twenty years of age, he produced the " Traditions of Edin- burgh " a book that is, of his many contributions to the social and antiquarian history of his native land, still, perhaps, the most popular. Every type of it was set up, every sheet of it pulled at press, by his brother, and the first edition, dated 1823, presents a curious contrast to the handsome copy published in 1869. The Traditions was a book the immediate popularity of which raised the author in public esteem, though its value is greater still at the present day, when many of the interesting associations connected with scenes and places are rapidly changing their character, or have been swept away altogether. Others than Scott even then expressed their wonder " where the boy got all his information." In a sketch of Robert Chambers, by the son of one of his earliest friends, that appeared in Lippincotfs Magazine for July, 1871, an amusingly frank letter is quoted, which shows that the young writer was already getting into the " swim " of authorship : " You may depend upon a copy of the ' Traditions of Edinburgh,' and a review of them as soon as they are ready. I am busy just now in writing reviews of them myself, for the various works I can get them put into, being now come to a resolution that an author always undertakes his own business best, and is indeed the only person capable of doing his work justice. I stood too much upon punctilio in my maiden work, the ' Illustrations/ and