nt became a journalist, and held an important post on
the _Daily Telegraph_. He died in 1873.

When printed in Leigh Hunt's _Examiner_, signed C.L., the poem had
these prefatory words by the editor:--

The following piece perhaps we had some personal reasons for not
admitting, but we found more for the contrary; and could not resist
the pleasure of contemplating together the author and the object of his
address,--to one of whom the Editor is owing for some of the lightest
hours of his captivity, and to the other for a main part of its continual
solace.

* * * * *

Page 41. _Lines Suggested by a Picture of Two Females by Lionardo da
Vinci_. By Mary Lamb.

This was the "Lady Blanch" poem which Lamb sent to Dorothy Wordsworth in
the letter of June 2, 1804 (see page 325). There it was entitled
"Suggested by a Print of 2 Females, after Lionardo da Vinci, called
Prudence and Beauty, which hangs up in our room." The usual title is
"Modesty and Vanity."

Page 41. _Lines on the Same Picture being Removed to make Place for a
Portrait of a Lady by Titian_. By Mary Lamb.

Writing to Dorothy Wordsworth on June 14, 1805, Lamb says: "You had her
[Mary's] Lines about the 'Lady Blanch.' You have not had some which she
wrote upon a copy of a girl from Titian, which I had hung up where that
print of Blanch and the Abbess (as she beautifully interpreted two
female figures from L. da Vinci) had hung, in our room. 'Tis light and
pretty."

* * * * *

Page 42. _Lines on the Celebrated Picture by Lionardo da Vinci, called
The Virgin of the Rocks_.

This was the picture, one version of which hangs in the National
Gallery, that was known to Lamb's friends as his "Beauty," and which led
to the Scotchman's mistake in the _Elia_ essay "Imperfect Sympathies."

Page 42. _On the Same_. By Mary Lamb.

In the letter to Dorothy Wordsworth of June 14, 1805, quoted just above,
Lamb says: "I cannot resist transcribing three or four Lines which poor
Mary [she was at this time away from home in one of her enforced
absences] made upon a Picture (a Holy Family) which we saw at an Auction
only one week before she left home.... They are sweet Lines, and upon a
sweet Picture."

Mary Lamb wrote little verse besides the _Poetry for Children_ (see
Vol. III. of this edition). To the pieces that are printed in the
present volume I would add the lines suggested by the d