In his more leisurely years, at Islington and Enfield, Lamb wrote a great number of acrostics--many more probably than have been preserved--of which these, printed in _Album Verses_, are all that he cared to see in print. Probably he found his chief impulse in Emma Isola's schoolfellows and friends, who must have been very eager to obtain in their albums a contribution from so distinguished a gentleman as Elia, and who passed on their requests through his adopted daughter. I have not been able to trace the identity of several of them. The lady who desired her epitaph was Mrs. Williams in whose house Emma Isola was governess. While there Emma was seriously ill, and Lamb travelled down to Fornham, in Suffolk, in 1830, to bring her home. On returning he wrote Mrs. Williams several letters, in one of which, dated Good Friday, he said:--"I beg you to have inserted in your county paper something like this advertisement; 'To the nobility, gentry, and others, about Bury,--C. Lamb respectfully informs his friends and the public in general, that he is leaving off business in the acrostic line, as he is going into an entirely new line. Rebuses and Charades done as usual, and upon the old terms. Also, Epitaphs to suit the memory of any person deceased.'" Mrs. Williams probably then suggested that Lamb should write her epitaph, for in his next letter he says:--"I have ventured upon some lines, which combine my old acrostic talent (which you first found out) with my new profession of epitaphmonger. As you did not please to say, when you would die, I have left a blank space for the date. May kind heaven be a long time in filling it up." On page 48 will be found some lines to one of Mrs. Williams' daughters. The acrostic on page 65 is to another. These would both be Emma Isola's pupils. * * * * * TRANSLATIONS Page 66. _Translations from Vincent Bourne_.