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.