“Small profits do great things.” Again, he was very fond of repeating, “I found all I possess in small _profits_, bound by _industry_, and _clasped_ with economy.” Few have done better than the Chamberses, of Edinburgh. After months of pence-scraping and book-hoarding, Robert succeeded in collecting a stock worth about fifty shillings; and with nothing but these and his yearnings for independence, and his determination to write books by-and-by, but at present to sell them, he, at the age of sixteen, opened a little shop—a stall—in Leith Street. His brother William also started as a bookseller and printer in the same neighbourhood. William Chambers was born in Peebles, April 16th, 1800; and Robert, coming next in order in the family, was born July 10th, 1802. The father carried on the hereditary trade of the manufacture of woollen and linen clothes. The grandfather held the office of elder of his church for the last thirty years of his existence. The grandmother was a little woman of plain appearance, a great stickler on points of controversial divinity, a rigorous critic of sermons, and a severe censor of what she considered degenerating manners. The mother was a beauty, and her pretty face led her into an alliance which, in the end, could have been productive of little happiness. Mr. Chambers speaks of his father as “accurate, upright, aspiring in his tastes and habits, with a fund of humour and an immense love of music.” He made some progress in science. “Affected, like others at the time, with the fascinating works of James Fergusson on astronomy, he had a kind of rage for that branch of study, which he pursued by means of a tolerably good telescope, in company with Mungo Park, the African traveller, who had settled as a surgeon in Peebles, and one or two other acquaintances.” The failing of his father was his pliancy of disposition. He was cheated with his eyes open. For such men worldly ruin is only a question of time. In a little while the family were driven from Peebles, and William had to fight the battle of life on his own account. His education, which closed when he was thirteen, had been by no means an expensive one. Books included, it had cost somewhere about sis pounds. For this he was well grounded in English. The most distressing part of his school exercises consisted in learning by heart the catechism of the Westminster Assembly of Divines—a document which he tells us it was impossible for any person under maturity to understand, or to regard in any other light than as a torture. In the case of the two brothers there was a curious malformation. They were sent into the world with six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot. By the neighbours this was considered lucky. In the case of William, the superfluous members were easily removed. It was not so with Robert. The supernumerary toes on the outside of the foot were attached to or formed part of the metatarsal