atti, whom he most studied and
imitated, were extremely just, and scarcely inferior to the originals."

JERVAS THE INSTRUCTOR OF POPE.

What will recommend the name of Jervas to inquisitive posterity, was his
intimacy with Pope, whom he instructed to draw and paint. The poet has
enshrined the feeble talents of the painter in "the lucid amber of his
flowing lines." Spence informs us, that Pope was "the pupil of Jervas
for the space of a year said a half," meaning that he was constantly so,
for that period. Tillemans was engaged in painting a landscape for Lord
Radnor, into which Pope by stealth inserted some strokes, which the
prudent painter did not appear to observe; and of this circumstance Pope
was not a little vain. In proof of his proficiency in the art of
painting, Pope presented his friend Mr. Murray, with a head of Betterton
the celebrated tragedian, which was afterwards at Caen Wood. During a
long visit at Holm Lacy in Herefordshire, he amused his leisure by
copying from Vandyck, in crayons, a head of Wentworth, Earl of
Strafford, which was still preserved there many years afterwards, and is
said to have possessed considerable merit. For an account of Pope's
skill in painting fans, see vol. I. page 201 of this work.

JERVAS AND DR. ARBUTHNOT.

Jervas, who affected to be a Free-thinker, was one day talking very
irreverently of the Bible. Dr. Arbuthnot maintained to him that he was
not only a speculative, but a practical believer. Jervas denied it.
Arbuthnot said that he would prove it: "You strictly observe the second
commandment;" said the Doctor, "for in your pictures you 'make not the
likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or in the earth
beneath, or in the waters under the earth'"!

JERVAS' VANITY.

His vanity and conceit knew no bounds. He copied a picture by Titian in
the Royal collection, which he thought so vastly superior to the
original, that on its completion he exclaimed with great complacency,
"Poor little Tit, how he would stare!" Walpole says, "Jervas had
ventured to look upon the fair Lady Bridgewater with more than a
painter's eye; so entirely did that lovely form possess his imagination,
that many a homely dame was delighted to find her picture resemble Lady
Bridgewater. Yet neither his presumption nor his passion could
extinguish his self-love." One day, as she was sitting to him, he ran
over the beauties of her face with rapture--'but,' said he, "I cannot
help telling