letters F.S.A. after his name, showing that he had been elected a Fellow of the Society of Artists. This was probably done through West's influence, who was in correspondence with Copley and had invited him to come to London and make his house his home. In consequence of this, he sailed for England in June of 1774, leaving his family in Boston, and apparently in the expectation of returning there. West received him on his arrival, took him to see the pic­tures in the Queen's Palace, introduced him to persons likely to be helpful to him, and furthered his interests in every way in his power. He stayed in London during the summer, painting a number of por­traits, including those of Lord and Lady North and heads of the King and Queen, and in the autumn left for Italy, passing the win­ter in Rome, where he spent his time studying the antiquities, copy­ing both from the statues and paintings, and finishing a group of Ralph Izard of South Carolina and his wife, the only portraits which he did there. 

The growing political disturbances in America, as well as the favor with which his painting was received, caused Copley to send for his family, and in July of the next year, while he was at Parma copy­ing the "St. Jerome" of Correggio, for which he had a commission, he learned of their arrival in London, and after a trip down the Rhine and through the Netherlands joined them before the end of the year. Mrs. Copley left behind her in America Mrs. Pelham, the artist's mother, and in her care an infant only a few weeks old, which she was afraid to expose to the trials of an ocean voyage, and which died soon after. She took with her three children, and was soon afterward joined by her father, Mr. Clarke, and her brothers, who had previously moved to Canada. Mr. Clarke was a strong Tory. It was to him that the tea was consigned which was dumped into the harbor at the " Boston tea party," and in other ways he suffered so heavily for his views that he subsequently received a pension from the British government up to his death. 

Copley, on the contrary, favored the American party, but without strong feeling. He writes to his wife on her arrival in England, when war was imminent: "You know, years ago, I was right in my opinion that this would be the result of the attempt to tax the colony ; it is now my settled conviction that all the power of Great Britain 

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