nd fellow-workers; and a lively running fire of criticism went
on everywhere about all new works completed or in progress. He was
fortunate, too, in the exact moment of his residence: Rome then
contained at once, besides himself, the two truest sculptors of the
present century, Canova the Venetian, and Thorwaldsen the Dane. Both
these great masters were singularly free from jealousy, rivalry, or
vanity. In their perfect disinterestedness and simplicity of character
they closely resembled Gibson himself. The ardent and pure-minded
young Welshman, who kept himself so unspotted from the world in his
utter devotion to his chosen art, could not fail to derive an elevated
happiness from his daily intercourse with these two noble and
sympathetic souls.

After Gibson had been for some time in Canova's studio, his illustrious
master told him that the sooner he took to modelling a life-size figure
of his own invention, the better. So Gibson hired a studio (with what
means he does not tell us in his short sketch of his own life) close to
Canova's, so that the great Venetian was able to drop in from time to
time and assist him with his criticism and judgment. How delightful is
the friendly communion of work implied in all this graceful artistic
Roman life! How different from the keen competition and jealous
rivalry which too often distinguishes our busy money-getting English
existence! In 1819, two years after Gibson's arrival at Rome, he began
to model his Mars and Cupid, a more than life-size group, on which he
worked patiently and lovingly for many months. When it was nearly
finished, one day a knock came at the studio door. After the knock, a
handsome young man entered, and announced himself brusquely as the Duke
of Devonshire. "Canova sent me," he said, "to see what you were
doing." Gibson wasn't much accustomed to dukes in those days--he grew
more familiar with them later on--and we may be sure the poor young
artist's heart beat a little more fiercely than usual when the stranger
asked him the price of his Mars and Cupid in marble. The sculptor had
never yet sold a statue, and didn't know how much he ought to ask; but
after a few minutes' consideration he said, "Five hundred pounds. But,
perhaps," he added timidly, "I have said too much." "Oh no," the duke
answered, "not at all too much;" and he forthwith ordered (or, as
sculptors prefer to say, commissioned) the statue to be executed for
him in marble. Gibson