The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb
Chapter 271 : Page 115. _Twelfth Night Characters_...._Morning Post_, January 8, 1802.These epigrams

Page 115. _Twelfth Night Characters_....

_Morning Post_, January 8, 1802.

These epigrams were identified by the late Mr. d.y.k.es Campbell from a letter of Lamb's to John Rickman, dated Jan. 14, 1802, printed in Ainger's edition.

A---- is, of course, Henry Addington (1757-1844), afterwards Viscount Sidmouth. After being Speaker for eleven years, he became suddenly Prime Minister in 1801, at the wish of George III., who was rendered uneasy by Pitt's project for Catholic relief.

C---- and F---- were George Canning (1770-1827) and John Hookham Frere (1769-1846) of _The Anti-Jacobin_, against whom Lamb had a grudge on account of the _Anti-Jacobin's_ treatment of himself and Lloyd (see note to _Blank Verse_, page 320). Lamb returned to the attack on Canning again and again, as the epigrams that follow will show.

The epigram on Count Rumford was not included. We know that it was sent, from the Rickman letter. The same missive tells us that that on Dr.

Solomon was also written in 1802, but it was not printed till _The Champion_ took it on July 15 and 16, 1820. Solomon was alive in 1802 and was therefore a present Empiric. He was a notorious quack doctor, author of the _Guide to Health_ and the purveyor of a nostrum called Balm of Gilead. One of Southey's letters (October 14, 1801) contains a diverting account of this Empiric. I copy one of Solomon's advertis.e.m.e.nts from a provincial paper:--

DR. SOLOMON'S CORDIAL BALM OF GILEAD

To the young it will afford lasting health, strength and spirits, in place of la.s.situde and debility; and to the aged and infirm it will a.s.suredly furnish great relief and comfort by gently and safely invigorating the system; it will not give immortality; but if it be in the power of medicine to gild the autumn of declining years, and calmly and serenely protract the close of life beyond its narrow span, this restorative is capable of effecting that grand desideratum.

The price was 10s. 6d. a bottle.

Lamb's epigrams were only a few among many printed in the _Morning Post_ for January 7 and 8, 1802. Whether he wrote also the following I do not know, but these are not inconceivably from his hand:--

LORD NELSON

Off with BRIAREUS, and his HUNDRED HANDS, OUR NELSON, with _one arm_, unconquer'd stands!

MR. P[IT]T

By crooked arts, and actions sinister, I came at first to be a Minister; And now I am no longer Minister, I still retain my actions sinister.

Page 116. _Two Epigrams_. _The Examiner_, March 22, 1812.

These epigrams have no signature, but the second of them was reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion"_ (1822) with Lamb's signature, R. et R., appended, and a note saying that it was written in the last reign, together with an announcement that it had not appeared in _The Champion_, but was inserted in that collection at the author's request. By Princeps and the heir-apparent is meant, of course, the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., who had just entered upon office as Regent. The epigrams refer to his transfer of confidence, if so it may be called, from the Whig party to the Marquis Wellesley, Perceval and the Tory party. The circ.u.mstance that the Prince of Wales was also Duke of Cornwall is referred to in the first epigram. The second of the epigrams is copied into one of Lamb's Commonplace Books with the t.i.tle "On the Prince breaking with his Party."

Page 116. _The Triumph of the Whale_.

_The Examiner_, March 15, 1812. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ signed R. et R., with a note stating that it had not appeared in _The Champion_, but was collected with the other pieces by the author's request.

The subject of the verses was, of course, the first gentleman in Europe.

_The Examiner_ was never over-nice in its treatment of the prince, and it was in the same year, 1812, that Leigh Hunt, the editor, and his brother, the printer, of the paper were prosecuted for the article styling him a "libertine" and the "companion of gamblers and demireps"

(which appeared the week following Lamb's poem), and were condemned to imprisonment for it. Lamb's lines came very little short of expressing equally objectionable criticisms; but verse is often privileged.

Thelwall--and Lamb--showed some courage in reprinting the lines in 1822, when the prince had become king. Talfourd relates that Lamb was in the habit of checking harsh comments on the prince by others with the smiling remark, "_I_ love my Regent."

In Galignani's 1828 edition of Byron this piece was attributed to his lords.h.i.+p.

Page 118. _St. Crispin to Mr. Gifford._

_The Examiner_, October 3 and 4, 1819. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822.

William Gifford (1756-1826), editor of the _Quarterly Review_, had been apprenticed to a cobbler. Lamb had an old score against him on account of his editorial treatment of Lamb's review of Wordsworth's _Excursion_, in 1814, and other matters (see note to "Letter to Southey," Vol. I.).

Writing to the Olliers, on the publication of his _Works_, June 18, 1818, Lamb says, in reference to this sonnet: "I meditate an attack upon that Cobler Gifford, which shall appear immediately after any favourable mention which S. [Southey] may make in the Quarterly. It can't in decent _grat.i.tude_ appear _before_." When the sonnet was printed in the _Examiner_ it purported to have reference to the _Quarterly's_ treatment of Sh.e.l.ley's _Revolt of Islam_, which treatment Leigh Hunt was then exposing in a series of articles.

Page 118. _The G.o.dlike._

_The Champion_, March 18 and 19, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822.

Another contribution to the character of George IV., who had just succeeded to the throne, and was at that moment engaged upon the task of divorcing his wife, Caroline of Brunswick. The eighth line must be read probably with a medical eye. The concluding three lines refer to George III.'s insanity. As a political satirist Lamb disdained half measures.

Page 119. _The Three Graves._

_The Champion_, May 13 and 14, 1820. Signed Dante. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822, signed Dante and R. et R.

Reprinted in the _London Magazine_, May, 1825, unsigned, with the names in the last line printed only with initials and dashes, and the sub-t.i.tle, "Written during the time, now happily almost forgotten, of the spy system."

Lamb probably found a certain mischievous pleasure in giving these lines the t.i.tle of one of Coleridge's early poems.

The spy system was a protective movement undertaken by Lord Sidmouth (1757-1844) as Home Secretary in 1817--after the Luddite riots, the general disaffection in the country, Thistlewood's Spa Fields uprising and the break-down of the prosecution. Curious reading on the subject is to be found in the memoirs of Richmond the Spy, and Peter Mackenzie's remarks on that book and its author, in _Tait's Magazine_. The spy system culminated with the failure of the Cato Street Conspiracy in 1820, which cost Thistlewood his life. That plot to murder ministers was revealed by George Edwards, one of the spies named by Lamb in the last line of this poem. Castles and Oliver were other government spies mentioned by Richmond.

Line 2. _Bedloe, Oates_ ... William Bedloe (1650-1680) and t.i.tus Oates (1649-1705) were a.s.sociated as lying informers of the proceedings of the imaginary Popish Plot against Charles II.

Page 119. _Sonnet to Mathew Wood, Esq_.

_The Champion_, May 13 and 14, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822.

Matthew Wood, afterwards Sir Matthew (1768-1843), was twice Lord Mayor of London, 1815-1817, and M.P. for the city. He was one of the princ.i.p.al friends and advisers of Caroline of Brunswick, George IV.'s repudiated wife. Hence his particular merit in Lamb's eyes. Later he administered the affairs of the Duke of Kent, whose trustee he was, and his baronetcy was the first bestowed by Queen Victoria. The sonnet contains another of Lamb's attacks on Canning. This statesman's mother, after the death of George Canning, her first husband, in 1771, took to the stage, where she remained for thirty years. Canning was at school at Eton. The course on which Wood was adjured to hold was the defence of Queen Caroline; but Canning's opposition to her cause was not so absolute as Lamb seemed to think. The ministry, of which Canning was a member, had prepared a bill by which the queen was to receive 50,000 annually so long as she remained abroad. The king insisted on divorce or nothing, and it was his own repugnance to this measure that caused Canning to tender his resignation. The king refused it, and Canning went abroad and did not return until it was abandoned.

Line 11. _Pickpocket Peer_. This would be Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville (1742-1811), Pitt's lieutenant, who was impeached for embezzling money as First Lord of the Admiralty. He was acquitted, but that was a circ.u.mstance that would hardly concern Lamb when in this mood.

Page 120. _On a Projected Journey_.

_The Champion_, July 15 and 16, 1820. Reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations of "The Champion,"_ 1822. George IV.'s visit to Hanover did not, however, occur till October, 1821. This is ent.i.tled in Ayrton's MS.

book (see below) "Upon the King's embarcation at Ramsgate for Hanover, 1821."