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　　LETTER 513

　　CHARLES LAMB TO MRS. WILLIAMS

　　Enfield, Tuesday [April 21, 1830].

　　Dear Madam,—I have ventured upon some lines, which combine my old acrostic talent (which you first found out) with my new profession of epitaph-monger. 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. At least you cannot say that these lines are not about you, though not much to the purpose. We were very sorry to hear that you have not been very well, and hope that a little excursion may revive you. Miss Isola is thankful for her added day; but I verily think she longs to see her young friends once more, and will regret less than ever the end of her holydays. She cannot be going on more quietly than she is doing here, and you will perceive amendment.

　　I hope all her little commissions will all be brought home to your satisfaction. When she returns, we purpose seeing her to Epping on her journey. We have had our proportion of fine weather and some pleasant walks, and she is stronger, her appetite good, but less wolfish than at first, which we hold a good sign. I hope Mr. Wing will approve of its abatement. She desires her very kindest respects to Mr. Williams and yourself, and wishes to rejoin you. My sister and myself join in respect, and pray tell Mr. Donne, with our compliments, that we shall be disappointed, if we do not see him. This letter being very neatly written, I am very unwilling that Emma should club any of her disproportionate scrawl to deface it.

　　Your obliged servant,

　　C. LAMB.

　　[Addressed to "Mrs. Williams, W.B. Donne, Esq., Matteshall, East Dereham, Norfolk."

　　Mr. Wing was probably Miss Isola's doctor. Mr. Donne was William Bodham Donne (1807-1882), the friend of Edward FitzGerald, and Examiner of Plays.

　　This was Lamb's acrostic-epitaph on Mrs. Williams:—

　　Grace Joanna here doth lie:

　　Reader, wonder not that I

　　Ante-date her hour of rest.

　　Can I thwart her wish exprest,

　　Ev'n unseemly though the laugh

　　Jesting with an Epitaph?

　　On her bones the turf lie lightly,

　　And her rise again be brightly!

　　No dark stain be found upon her—

　　No, there will not, on mine honour—

　　Answer that at least I can.

　　Would that I, thrice happy man,

　　In as spotless garb might rise,

　　Light as she will climb the skies,

　　Leaving the dull earth behind,

　　In a car more swift than wind.

　　All her errors, all her failings,

　　(Many they were not) and ailings,

　　Sleep secure from Envy's railings.

　　Here should come an undated note from Lamb to Basil Montagu, in which Lamb asks for help for Hone in his Coffee-House. "If you can help a worthy man you will have two worthy men obliged to you." Hone, having fallen upon bad times, Lamb helped in the scheme to establish him in the Grasshopper Coffee-House, at 13 Gracechurch Street (see next letter).] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 6