on so that he might learn his business by
experience. In a day or two the whole thing, of course, collapsed by
its own weight; and then Canova called in a blacksmith and showed the
eager beginner how the mechanical skeleton was formed with iron bars,
and interlacing crosses of wood and wire. This was quite a new idea to
Gibson, who had modelled hitherto only in his own self-taught fashion
with moist clay, letting it support its own weight as best it might.
Another pupil then fleshed out the iron skeleton with clay, and roughly
shaped it to the required figure, so that it stood as firm as a rock
for Gibson to work upon. The new hand turned to vigorously once more;
and, in spite of his seeming rawness, finished the copy so well that
Canova admitted him at once to the Academy to model from life. At this
Academy Canova himself, who loved art far more than money, used to
attend twice a week to give instruction to students without receiving
any remuneration whatsoever. It is of such noble men as this that the
world of art is largely made up--that world which we too-practical
English have always undervalued or even despised.

Gibson's student period at Rome under Canova was a very happy episode
in a uniformly happy and beautiful life. His only trouble was that he
had not been able to come there earlier. Singularly free from every
taint of envy (like all the great sculptors of his time), he could not
help regretting when he saw other men turning out work of such great
excellence while he was still only a learner. "When I observed the
power and experience of youths much younger than myself," he says in
his generous appreciative fashion, "their masterly manner of sketching
in the figure, and their excellent imitation of nature, my spirits fell
many degrees, and I felt humbled and unhappy." He need not have done
so, for the man who thus distrusts his own work is always the truest
workman; it is only fools or poor creatures who are pleased and
self-satisfied with their own first bungling efforts. But the great
enjoyment of Rome to Gibson consisted in the free artistic society
which he found there. At Liverpool, he had felt almost isolated; there
was hardly anybody with whom he could talk on an equality about his
artistic interests; nobody but himself cared about the things that
pleased and engrossed his earnest soul the most. But at Rome, there
was a great society of artists; every man's studio was open to his
friends a