hich we know Lamb to have been the author--as "The Three Graves," which
he sent also to the _London Magazine_ (in 1825), and which he was in the
habit of reading or reciting to his friends--enables us to ascertain the
authorship of the others. A note placed by Thelwall above the index of
the book states, "it is much to be regretted that, by mere oversight, or
rather mistake, several of the printed epigrams of R. et R. have been
omitted;" but a search through the files of _The Champion_ has failed to
bring to light any others with Lamb's adopted signature.

The origin of the signature R. et R. is unknown. Mr. Percy Fitzgerald
suggests that it might stand for Romulus and Remus, but offers no
supporting theory. He might have added that so unfamiliar a countenance
is in these epigrams shown by their author, that the suggestion of a
wolf rather than a Lamb might have been intended. Lamb's principal
political epigrams were drawn from him by his intense contempt for the
character of George IV., then Prince of Wales. His treatment of Caroline
of Brunswick, as we see, moved Lamb to utterances of almost sulphurous
indignation not only for the prince himself, but for all who were on his
side, particularly Canning. Lamb, we must suppose, was wholly on the
side of the queen, thus differing from Coleridge, who when asked how his
sympathies were placed would admit only to being anti-Prince.

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