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_

Dim were the stars, and clouded was the azure, Silence in darkness
brooded on the ocean, Save when the wave upon the pebbled sea-beach
Faintly resounded.

Then, O forsaken daughter of Acrisius! Seiz'd in the hour of woe and
tribulation, Thou, with the guiltless victim of thy love, didst Rock on
the surges.

Sad o'er the silent bosom of the billow, Borne on the breeze and
modulated sweetly, Plaintive as music, rose the mother's tones of
Comfortless anguish.

"Sad is thy birth, and stormy is thy cradle, Offspring of sorrow!
nursling of the ocean! Waves rise around to pillow thee, a