[282] Elizabeth Pope died on 15th March of this year, aged 52. The funeral to the Abbey was met everywhere by great crowds. Her abilities had not been dimmed by those of Garrick, Mrs. Siddons, and Miss Farren, and her private life was blameless. The resemblance she bore to Lady Sarah Lennox was such that George III., seeing her act late in her career, exclaimed to his queen, “She is like Lady Sarah still.” There is a fine story of her parting with Garrick. On June 8, 1776, his last appearance but one, when he was playing Lear to her Cordelia, Garrick said to her with a sigh: “Ah, Bess! this is the last time of my being your father; you must now look out for someone else to adopt you.” “Then, sir,” she exclaimed, dropping on her knees, “give me a father’s blessing.” Garrick, deeply touched, raised her, and said, “God bless you!” [283] Nevertheless Pope married two more wives. His most lasting affections appear to have been set on table delicacies. Once, when Kean asked him to act with him at Dublin, and take a benefit there, he declined, saying: “I must be at Plymouth at the time; it is exactly the season for mullet.” He maintained that there was but one crime: peppering a beef-steak. [284] Pope had begun life as a crayon portrait painter in his birthplace, Cork. A highly finished water-colour portrait of Henry Grattan, from his hand, is in the British Museum Print Room. [285] Francis Cotes, born in Cork Street, 1725, was a foundation member of the Royal Academy, and famous for his crayon portraits. He built himself a house in Cavendish Square (No. 32), in which Romney afterwards lived for twenty-one years, followed by Sir Martin A. Shee. It was demolished in 1904. The British Museum has four portrait subjects by Cotes in crayon. He is poorly represented in the National Gallery by a small portrait of Mrs. Brocas. [286] Benjamin Green, born at Halesowen, became a drawing-master at Christ’s Hospital, and member of the Incorporated Society of Artists. He published many topographical plates, and engraved the illustrations in Morant’s _History and Antiquities of the County of Essex_ (1768). His drawings of Canonbury Tower and Highbury Barn are in the British Museum Print Room. He died about 1800. [287] The Right Honourable James Caulfield, first Earl of Charlemont (1728-99), distinguished himself in Ireland politically; in London he mixed with the Reynolds and Johnson set and was a member of the Dilettanti Club. In the college at St. Andrews, which Johnson and Boswell playfully imagined might be staffed by members of the Literary Club, Lord Charlemont was assigned the chair of modern history, and it was on Lord Charlemont that Boswell, Burke, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and others laid the task of bringing Dr. Johnson’s conversational powers into play by asking him whether a ludicrous statement in the newspapers that he was taking dancing lessons from Vestris was true.