st to perfect himself, but feeling
sadly the lack of training and competition. One of the last works he
executed while still in Mr. Francis's service was a chimney-piece for
Sir John Gladstone, father of the future premier. Sir John was so
pleased with the execution, that he gave the young workman ten pounds
as a present. But in spite of occasional encouragement like this,
Gibson felt himself at Liverpool, as he says, "chained down by the leg,
and panting for liberation."

In 1817, when he was just twenty-seven, he determined to set off to
London. He took with him good introductions from Mr. Roscoe to Mr.
Brougham (afterwards Lord Chancellor), to Christie, the big
picture-dealer, and to several other influential people. Later on,
Roscoe recommended him to still more important leaders in the world of
art--Flaxman the great sculptor, Benjamin West, the Quaker painter and
President of the Royal Academy, and others of like magnitude. Mr.
Watson Taylor, a wealthy art patron, gave Gibson employment, and was
anxious that he should stop in London. But Gibson wanted more than
employment; he wanted to LEARN, to perfect himself, to become great in
his art. He could do that nowhere but at Rome, and to Rome therefore
he was determined to go. Mr. Taylor still begged him to wait a little.
"Go to Rome I will," Gibson answered boldly, "even if I have to go
there on foot."

He was not quite reduced to this heroic measure, however, for his
Liverpool friends made up a purse of 150 pounds for him (we may be sure
it was repaid later on); and with that comparatively large sum in his
pocket the young stone-cutter started off gaily on his continental
tour, from which he was not to return for twenty-seven years. He drove
from Paris to Rome, sharing a carriage with a Scotch gentleman; and
when he arrived in the Pope's city (as it then was) he knew absolutely
not a single word of Italian, or of any other language on earth save
Welsh and English. In those days, Canova, the great Venetian sculptor,
was the head of artistic society in Rome; and as ALL society in Rome is
more or less artistic, he might almost be said to have led the whole
life of the great and lively city. Indeed, the position of such a man
in Italy resembles far more that of a duke in England than of an artist
as we here are accustomed to think of him. Gibson had letters of
introduction to this prince of sculptors from his London friends; and
when he went to present the