Mr. William Chambers, who undertook from the first the largest share in the mercantile concerns of the firm, has still found time to accomplish a large amount of literary work. In addition to the book previously mentioned, he has published, among others, “Travels in Italy,” and a “History of Peebleshire,” and the “Memoir of Robert Chambers,” besides contributing freely to the _Journal_, and other of their serial publications. * * * * * Charles Knight was born at Windsor in the year 1791, and was the only child of his father, a bookseller and printer of some importance in that town, who, by his connection with the _Microcosm_, a paper conducted by Canning, and written by Hookham Frere, “Bobus” Smith, and other Etonians, had made many influential friends. The last number of this schoolboy journal appeared, however, four years before the birth of his son. Charles was educated at the school of a Dr. Nicholas at Ealing, and his early avidity for reading had, he himself thinks, much to do with rendering his constitution weak and feeble. At the age of fourteen he signed indentures of apprenticeship to his father, and in 1812, when he attained his majority, he was sent up for a few weeks to London to undergo a short term of training in the office of the _Globe_ newspaper, so as to give him practical experience in reporting and other journalistic work; for from early boyhood he had determined to possess a paper of his own. On Aug. 1st of the same year his desire was realized, and, in conjunction with his father, he started the _Windsor and Eton Express_, the editorship of which he continued up to the year 1827, finding time, however, in the midst of his busy life, to devote to the cultivation of more general literature. In 1813 appeared the first original work from his pen, “Arminius,” a tragedy--which had been offered to the manager of Drury Lane Theatre, and had of course been rejected, but very courteously. During his residence at Windsor he was co-editor, with H. E. Locker, of the _Plain Englishman_, a miscellaneous journal, which only lasted from 1820 to 1822. His first venture into the dimly descried regions of popular literature appeared, he says, in the _Windsor Express_ for Dec. 11, 1819, in a paper called “Cheap Publications,” and was followed by others, till, in one of the last numbers of the _Plain Englishman_, we come across an article entitled “Diffusion of Useful Knowledge”--a straw which shows which way his mind was turning. [Illustration: Charles Knight. 1791-1873.]