Gibson replied, with many stammerings, that he hoped his slender means would suffice for his personal needs, but that if Canova would only condescend to give him instruction, to make him his pupil, to let him model in his studio, he would be eternally grateful.  Canova was one of the most noble and lovable of men.  He acceded at once to Gibson’s request, and Gibson never forgot his kind and fatherly assistance.  “Dear generous master,” the Welsh sculptor wrote many years after, when Canova had long passed away, “I see you before me now.  I hear your soft Venetian dialect, and your kindly words inspiring my efforts and gently correcting my defects.  My heart still swells with grateful recollection of you.”

Canova told his new pupil to devote a few days first to seeing the sights of Rome; but Gibson was impatient to begin at once.  “I shall be at your studio to-morrow morning,” the ardent Welshman said; and he kept his word.  Canova, pleased with so much earnestness and promptitude, set him to work forthwith upon a clay model from his own statue of the Pugilist.  Gibson went to the task with a will, moulding the clay as best he could into shape; but he still knew so little of the technical ways of regular sculptors that he tried to model this work from the clay alone, though its pose was such that it could not possibly hold together without an iron framework.  Canova saw his error and smiled, but let him go 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