g.

Roscoe had a splendid collection of prints and drawings at Allerton;
and he invited the clever Welsh lad over there frequently, and allowed
him to study them all to his heart's content. To a lad like John
Gibson, such an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the works of
Raphael and Michael Angelo was a great and pure delight. Before he was
nineteen, he began to think of a big picture which he hoped to paint
some day; and he carried it out as well as he was able in his own
self-taught fashion. For as yet, it must be remembered, Gibson had had
no regular artistic instruction: there was none such, indeed, to be had
at all in Liverpool in his day; and there was no real art going on in
the town in any way. Mr. Francis, his master, was no artist; nor was
there anybody at the works who could teach him: for as soon as Mr.
Francis found out the full measure of Gibson's abilities, he dismissed
his German artist Luge, and put the clever boy entirely in his place.
At this time, Gibson was only receiving six shillings a week as wages;
but Mr. Francis got good prices for many of his works, and was not
ashamed even to put his own name upon the promising lad's artistic
performances.

Mr. Roscoe did not merely encourage the young sculptor; he set him also
on the right road for ultimate success. He urged Gibson to study
anatomy, without which no sculpture worthy of the name is possible.
Gibson gladly complied, for he knew that Michael Angelo had been a
great anatomist, and Michael was just at that moment the budding
sculptor's idol and ideal. But how could he learn? A certain Dr. Vose
was then giving lectures on anatomy to young surgeons at Liverpool, and
on Roscoe's recommendation he kindly admitted the eager student gratis
to his dissecting-room. Gibson dissected there with a will in all his
spare moments, and as he put his mind into the work he soon became well
versed in the construction of the human body.

From the day that Gibson arrived at man's estate, the great dream of
his life was to go to Rome. For Rome is to art what London is to
industry--the metropolis in its own way of the entire earth. But
travelling in 1810 cost a vast deal of money; and the poor Liverpool
marble-cutter (for as yet he was really nothing more) could hardly hope
to earn the immense sum that such an expedition would necessarily cost
him. So for six years more he went on working at Liverpool in his own
native untaught fashion, doing his be