Lamb's poems for The Champion

This paper is about failing to understand Charles Lamb's epigram ‘On a Late Empiric of “balmy” Memory’. It was first printed in The Champion newspaper on July 15 1820. Most critics, including E. V. Lucas and George McDonald, who brought out their editions of Lamb almost simultaneously, seem to only know this epigram from the Poetical Recreations of the Champion, published by John Thelwall in 1822. Here I will argue that it is because this poem has been read out of context they and others have been unable to comment on it. In this paper I will return to the poem's original place of publication and will offer three potential readings of this hard to penetrate epigram.