CHAMBERS, KNIGHT, AND CASSELL. 24$ success, Robert Chambers' assistance was called in as editor, and in a short time the brothers finally entered into partnership as publishers ; and their triumphs were henceforth achieved conjointly " both of them," says an able writer in an old number of the Dublin University Magazine, " trained to habits of business and punctuality ; both of them upheld in all their dealings by strict prudence and conscientiousness ; and both of them practised, according to their dif- ferent aims and tendencies, in literary labour." Seldom, if ever, have two members of a publishing firm been so admirably fitted for their business. From the very outset the brothers were thrown entirely on their own resources ; they had no literary jealousy, and eagerly enlisted on their staff most of the young aspirants in Scotland, who have since achieved a world-wide reputation. It was, however, to Mr. Robert Chambers' contributions that the Journal was primarily indebted for success, his de- lightful essays, aesthetic and humorous, permanently fixing the work in public esteem. Gifted with a keenly-accurate observation, with a grave yet kindly humour, his vignettes of life and character, under the nom de plume of Mr. Baldestone, were so truthful and so " telling," that they met with a very favourable reception, when republished separately, in seven volumes, in 1844. "It was my design," he says in the preface, " from the first, to be the essayist of the middle class that in which I was born and to which I continue to belong. I, therefore, do not treat their manners and habits as one looking de haut en bas, which is the usual style of essayists, but as one look- ing round among the firesides of my friends." This was, doubtless, the primary secret of their success, j
