That Shelley found an opportunity for introducing himself to the Irish people in Fishamble Street was due to the influence of Mr. John Lawless, whose acquaintance he had made shortly before the meeting. A keen politician, who enjoyed in his party the equally flattering and suspicious designation of ‘honest Jack Lawless,’ and a flighty gentleman of letters, who produced two years later an absolutely meritless contribution to _The History of Ireland_, Mr. Lawless was quick to recognize in Shelley a young gentleman, whom he would do well to befriend. An organizer of the aggregate meeting, Mr. Lawless used his influence to put the young gentleman to the fore. Had it not been for honest Jack, the Dublin papers would have been silent about the points of Shelley’s speech that ‘did not excite disapprobation,’ and more or less communicative about the points that occasioned uproar. After affording Shelley an opportunity for introducing himself to the Dublin public, and nursing him through the reports of the meeting, ‘honest Jack’ took occasion to introduce the youthful adventurer, yet more fully to the Irish people, in the article that appeared in the _Dublin Weekly Messenger_ of ‘March, 1812;’ the article that was at the same time a personal memoir of the adventurer, and a critical review of his _Address to the Irish People_; the article that, after speaking of Shelley as the son of ‘a member of the Imperial Parliament’ and ‘the _immediate_ heir to one of the _first_ fortunes in England,’ concluded with a handsome reference to the ‘very beautiful poem’ which he had written for the benefit ‘of our distinguished countryman, Mr. Finerty.’ At the same time Mr. Lawless took occasion to introduce Mrs. Honest Jack Lawless to Shelley’s womankind, and to welcome the trio to his hearth, where he entertained them with the best fruit and vegetables of the Dublin market, and would have fed them on richer fare, had they not recently joined the Nineteenth Century Pythagoreans, and as Pythagoreans bound themselves to abstain from flesh and fermented liquors.