CHAMBERS, EPHRAIM, editor and chief compiler of the ' Cycle which bears lilt name, was born at Kendal in the latter part of the 17th century. Ili, father was • small freeholder hi Westmorland, in respectable circumstances. Ephraim, his eldest son, was bound apprentice to a mechanical trade in London. Eventually he became eminent. to Mr. Senex, the globe-maker; and it was while in his shop that he conceived the design of the 'Cyclopedia' which has chiefly pre screed his name. Some of the articles are said to have been written by him while he stood behind the counter. Before the com pletion of the work however, but probably after he had made arrange meets with the bookseller who published it, he left Mr. Senex, and took chambers in inn. The first edition of the • Cycloptedin appeared In 2 vole fol. in 1728, and was very favourably received. It was published by subscription, the price of each copy being four guineas. Immediately after, tho author was made a Follow of the Royal Society. A second edition of the work appeared in 1738, and a third In 1739. Mr. Chamber. wee also one of the writers in the Literary an analytical review of new works, which was begun in 1735, and continued for some years. lie was likewise asso ciated with Mr. Martyn, the botanical professor at Cambridge, in translating and abridging the ' Philosophical History and Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris,' which appeared in 5 vols. Sete. In 1712. This task he executed very ilL The only otbet lite rary work which has been attributed to him is a translation from the French of a quarto volume, entitled ' The Jesuits' Perspective.' He lived to the last the life of a recluse and a hard student, reading and writing from morning to night almost without intermission. A person who was his amanuensis for six years ie said to have related that he traoseribed for him, and took (limn from his dictation in that spun of time, not less than twenty large folio volumes, contaiuing as much matter as, If it had been printed, would have made thirty such volume, as those of his He died on the 18th of May 1740 at Canoubury House, Islingtou, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, under a short Latin inscription of his own composition. A
fourth edition of his 'Cycloptedie appeared in 1741, and a fifth in 1746. To the sixth eri.tion, which was brought out in 1750, were added two supplementary volumes, which were compiled by Sir John Hill. the betanist, and George Lewis Scott, the mathematician. These, along with mach now matter, were incorporated with the original work in a seventh edition, which began to be published in numbers under the superintendence of the lido Dr. Abraham Rees in 1778, and was completed In 4 vole. folio, In 1785. Chambere's work is also avowedly the butt of the greatly more extended • Cyclopedia' in the modern of which Dr. Rees afterwards engaged, and which he lived to complete In 15 vols. 4to. (London, 180241310. Indeed it may be said to have originated all the modern Cyclopedia*, both In the English and in other European languages. It wet early translated both into French and Italian. In the prospectus of the groat French 'Eney. clopethe' of Diderot and (efterevarda Incorporated In the ' Inacours Pr6litninairel, It ht admitted that Chatnbere's plan is excel lent, though the execution of the work is very indifferent. The writers aid, that it possibly never would have eppeareded all, If there hal not previously existed In the French language works from which Chambers drew, without measure and without choice, the greater part of the matter which composed his dictionary.
eliAMBEILS. GEORGE, merino painter, was the son of a poor seaman of Whitby in Yorkshire, when he wee born towards the close of the bet century. After he had attended for a short time the free school of he' native town, he was sent, at the age of ten years, to sea In • small trading sloop, In which he served ea cabin-boy for two your.