“Williams! ’tis yours to bid the canvas wear,
By art illusive, Hervey’s form and air;
Oh! with like happy labour, could I trace
Each virtue, each exalted Christian grace,
Each heavenly gift with which his soul is blest,
And fix the bright assemblage in my breast;
Then how transcendent far would be my plan,
You paint his mimic shade: I’d live the man.”
[199] Life and Times of Countess of Huntingdon, vol. i., p. 191.
[200] While in London Hervey had the offer of a tutorship in Jamaica. Writing to his father, he says,—“Dr. Nichols has made me an offer, which many young clergymen would covet:—to go over to Jamaica, to be tutor to a son of one of the most considerable persons in the island; for which, I should be entitled immediately to £100 sterling a year, also meat, drink, washing, and lodging; with an assurance of having, in a little time, a living of a hundred and fifty. I am greatly obliged to the doctor, but have taken leave to decline accepting the proposal.”