226 OLD AKD NEW EDINBURGH. [High Street,
Europe or America as a handy yet comprehensive
book of ready reference, and of which the learned
and ingenious Dr. Andrew Findlater acted as editor.
In 1849 William purchased the estate of Glenormiston,
and ten years after made a valuable gift
to his native town, in the form of a suite of buildings,
including a public reading-room, a good
library, lecture-hall, museum, and art gallery, designated
the ?Chambers Institution ;? and in 1864
he issued his ?History of Peeblesshire,? an able
example of local annals. In 1865 he was elected
Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and inaugurated the
great architectural improvements set afoot in the
more ancient parts of the city ; and in 1872 the
University conferred upon him the degree of
LL.D. I
In 1860-1 the brothers projected that important
work which gave Robert Chambers his death-blow
-? The Book of Days : a Miscellany of Popular
Antiquities in connection with the Calendar, including
Anecdote, Biography, History, Curiosities of
Literature, &c., SLc.,? a large work, in two volumes
of 840 pages each. Disappointed in promised
literary aid, Robert wqs compelled to perform the
@eater part of this work alone, and during the
winter of 186r-2 ?he might be seen every day in
the British Museum, working hard at this fatal
book; The mental strain broke him down;
domestic bereavements aggravated the effects of
ill-health, and with it, though he lived to finish his
?Life of Smollett,? his literary career closed. He
died at St. Andrews in the beginning of the year
1870.?
Still hale and healthy, and as full of intellectual
vigour as when he handled the old printing press
in his little shop in Leith Walk, William?s pen was
yet busy, and produced, in 1860, ?The Youth?s
Companion and Counsellor;? in 1862, ?? Something
of Italy: in 1870, ?Wintering at Mentone p in
1871, ?? France, its History and Revolutions f
and, in 1872, an affectionate ?Memoir? of his
brother Robert, and ?Ailie Gilroy,? a simple and
pathetic little story.
? In reviewing the life of this eminent publisher,?
says a writer in the Nafiond Forfraif GaZlery,
<? one may say that he has so lived as to teach the
world how the good old-fashioned commonplace
virtues can be exalted into the loftiest range of
moral heroism ; that he has left on record a grand
and manly example of self-help which time can
never obliterate from the admiring memory of
succeeding generations. Life has to him been a
sacred trust, to be used for helping on the advancement
of humanity, and for aiding the diffusion of
knowledge. The moral to be drawn from his
biography is that, with macly self-trust, with high
and noble aims, with fair education, and with
diligence, a man may, no matter how poor he be
at the outset of his career, struggle upwards and
onwards to fill a high social position, and enjoy no
ordinary share of earthly honours and possessions.?
At the establishment of the Messrs. Chambers
fully two hundred hands are constantly employed,
and their premises in Warriston Close (which have
also an entrance from the High Street) form one of
the interesting sights in the city.
Lower down the-Close stood a large and handsome
house, having a Gothic niche at its entrance,
which was covered with armorial bearings and many
sorely obliterated inscriptions, of which onlythe fragment
of one was traceable-Gracia Dei Thomas 1:
This was the town residence of Sir Thomas
Craig of Riccarton, a man of eminent learning and
great nobility of character, and who practised as
a lawyer for fully forty years, during the stormy
reigns of Mary and James VI. In 1564 he was
made Justice Depute, and found time to give to
the world some very able poems-one on the birth
of James, and another on his departure for England,
are preserved in the DeZifiG Poefamm Scofurwi.
He steadily refused the honour of knighthood, yet
was always called Sir Thomas Craig, in conforniity
to a royal edict on the subject.
He wrote a treatise on the independent sovereignty
of Scotland, which was rendered into
wretched English by Ridpath, and published in
1675. He was Advocate for the Church, when he
died at Edinburgh, on the 26th of February, r608,
and was succeeded in the old house, as well as his
estate, by his eldest son, Sir Lewis Craig, born in
1569, and called to the bench in 1604, as Lord
Wrightslands, while his father was still a pleader at
the bar. After his time his house had as occupiers,
first Sir George Urquhart of Cromarty, and next
Sir Robert Baird, Bart., of Saughton Hall, who died
in 1714.
But by far the most celebrated residenter in this
venerable alley was he who gave it the name it
bears, Sir Archibald Johnston Lord Warriston,
whose estate, still so named, lies eastward of Inverleith
Row. The son of Johnston of Beirholm
(once a merchant in Edinburgh), by his wife Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir Thomas Craig (above mentioned),
this celebrated lawyer, subtle statesman,
and somewhat juggling politician, was called to the
bar in 1633, and would appear to have purchased
from his cousin, Sir Lewis Craig, a house in the
close, adjoining his own.
In 1637 he began to take a prominent part in
the bitter disputes of the period, and Bishop Bur
