d 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
_gratitude_ appear _before_." When the sonnet was printed in the
_Examiner_ it purported to have reference to the _Quarterly's_ treatment
of Shelley's _Revolt of Islam_, which treatment Leigh Hunt was then
exposing in a series of articles.

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 w