September, 1831 (written, however, some years earlier), on page 121, being his latest efforts that we know of.  Of course there must be many other similar productions to which we have no clue—­the old Morning Post days doubtless saw many an epigram that cannot now be definitely claimed for Lamb—­but those that are preserved here sufficiently show how feelingly Lamb could hate and how trenchantly he could chastise.  Others that seem to me likely to be Lamb’s I could have included; but it is well to dispense as much as possible with the problematic.  For example, I suspect Lamb of the authorship of several of the epigrams quoted in The Examiner in 1819 and 1820 from the Morning Chronicle.  He used to send verses to the Morning Chronicle at that time, and Leigh Hunt, the editor of The Examiner, would naturally be pleased to give anything of his friend’s an additional publicity.

The majority of the epigrams printed in this section might have remained unidentified were it not that in 1822 John Thelwall, who owned and edited The Champion in 1818-1820, issued a little volume entitled The Poetical Recreations of “The Champion," wherein Lamb’s contributions were signed R. et R. This signature being appended to certain poems of which we know Lamb to have been the author—­as “The Three Graves,” which he sent also to the London Magazine (in 1825), and which he was in the habit of reading or reciting to his friends—­enables us to ascertain the authorship of the others.  A note placed by Thelwall above the index of the book states, “it is much to be regretted that, by mere oversight, or rather mistake, several of the printed epigrams of R. et R. have been omitted;” but a search through the files of The Champion has failed to bring to light any others with Lamb’s adopted signature.

The origin of the signature R. et R. is unknown.  Mr. Percy Fitzgerald suggests that it might stand for Romulus and Remus, but offers no supporting theory.  He might have added that so unfamiliar a countenance is in these epigrams shown by their author, that the suggestion of a wolf rather than a Lamb might have been intended.  Lamb’s principal political epigrams were drawn from him by his intense contempt for the character of George IV., then Prince of Wales.  His treatment of Caroline of Brunswick, as we see, moved Lamb to utterances of almost sulphurous indignation not only for the prince himself, but for all who were on his side, particularly Canning.  Lamb, we must suppose, was wholly on the side of the queen, thus differing from Coleridge, who when asked how his sympathies were placed would admit only to being anti-Prince.