Page 118. The Godlike.

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-title, “Written during the time, now happily almost forgotten, of the spy system.”

Lamb probably found a certain mischievous pleasure in giving these lines the title 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 Titus Oates (1649-1705) were associated 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 principal 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 L50,000 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.