1798 proposed to apprentice him to a solicitor in Sheffield. Whilst
walking through that town the boy saw some wood carving in a shop window.
His good angel was with him at the moment, and stood his friend. Chantrey
begged to be made a carver, and he was accordingly apprenticed to a Mr.
Ramsay, a wood carver in Sheffield.

At the house of his master the apprentice often met Mr. Raphael Smith,
known for his admirable crayon drawings. The acquaintance led to a more
refined appreciation of art, and excited in the youth so strong a desire
to cultivate it in a higher sphere, that at the age of 21 he gave to his
master the whole of his wealth, amounting to L50, to cancel his
indentures. Had he waited patiently for six months longer, his liberty
would have been his own, unbought. Leaving the carver's shop Chantrey
began to study in earnest. He painted a few portraits, which brought him
in a little money, and, with a little more borrowed from his friends, he
started for London. Here, guided by common sense, he sought employment as
an assistant carver. He might have starved had he started as a
professional painter.

Whilst laboring for subsistence Chantrey still used his brush, and also
laid the foundation of his coming success by making models in clay of the
human figure. He would hang, says his present biographer, pieces of
drapery on these models, "that he might get a perfect knowledge of the
way, and the best way, that it should be represented. In this manner he
was accustomed to work, and when he had completed one figure or mass of
drapery he pulled it down and began to model another from drapery
differently arranged; for at that time he never did anything without
nature or the material being before him." In 1808 Chantrey's first
imaginative work was exhibited. We have already mentioned it. It was the
head of Satan produced in the garret.

For eight years, according to Chantrey himself, he did not gain L5 by his
modeling. A fortunate commission, however--the bust of Horne
Tooke--finally obtained for him other commissions, amounting altogether
To L12,000. In 1811 "he married his cousin Miss Wale; with this lady he
received L10,000; this money enabled him to pay off some debts he had
contracted, to purchase a house and ground, on which he built two houses,
a studio and offices, and also to buy marble to proceed in the career he
had begun." In 1812 he executed for the city of London a statue in marble
of George III., placed