John Thelwall (1764-1834)--Citizen Thelwall--was one of the most popular and uncompromising of the Radicals of the seventeen-nineties. He belonged to the Society of the Friends of the People and other Jacobin confederacies. In May, 1794, he was even sent to the Tower (with Home Tooke and Thomas Hardy) for sedition; moved to Newgate in October; and tried and acquitted in December. Lamb first met him, I fancy, in 1797, when Thelwall was intimate with Coleridge. After 1798 Thelwall's political activities were changed for those of a lecturer on more pacific subjects, and later he opened an institution in London where he taught elocution and corrected the effects of malformation of the organs of speech. He bought _The Champion_ in 1818, and held it for two or three years, but it did not succeed. Thelwall died in 1834. Among his friends were Coleridge, Haydon, Hazlitt, Southey, Crabb Robinson and Lamb, all of whom, although they laughed at his excesses and excitements as a reformer, saw in him an invincible honesty and sincerity. Before leaving this subject I should like to quote the following lines from _The Champion_ of November 4 and 5, 1820:-- A LADY'S SAPPHIC Now the calm evening hastily approaches, Not a sound stirring thro' the gentle woodlands, Save that soft Zephyr with his downy pinions Scatters fresh fragrance. Now the pale sun-beams in the west declining Gild the dew rising as the twilight deepens, Beauty and splendour decorate the landscape; Night is approaching. By the cool stream's side pensively and sadly Sit I, while birds sing on the branches sweetly, And my sad thoughts all with their carols soothing, Lull to oblivion. M.L. A correspondence on English sapphics was carried on in _The Champion_ for some weeks at this time, various efforts being printed. On November 4 appeared the "Lady's Sapphic," just quoted, signed M.S. On the following day--for _The Champion_, like _The Examiner_, had a Saturday and Sunday edition--this signature was changed to M.L., and was thus given when the verses were reprinted in _The Poetical Recreations_ of _"The Champion"_ in 1822. There is no evidence that Mary Lamb wrote it; but she played with verse, and presumably read _The Champion_, since her brother was writing for it, and the poem might easily be hers. Personally I like to think it is, and that Lamb, on seeing the mistake in the initials in the Saturday edition, hurried down to the office to have it put right in that of Sunday. The same number of _The Champion_ (November 4 and 5, 1820) contains another poem in the same measure signed C., which not improbably was Lamb's contribution to the pastime. It runs as follows:-- DANAE EXPOSED WITH HER INFANT _An English Sapphic_