I also descended; when, in a moment, the train moved on—­ faster and faster—­and left me standing on the platform.  I walked a few paces backward and forward in disagreeable meditation.  ’I wish to Heaven,’ thought I to myself, ’that I was on my way back to Rome with a postboy.’  Then I observed a policeman darting his eyes upon me, as if he would look me through.  Said I to the fellow, ’Where is that cursed train gone to?  It’s off with my luggage and here am I.’  The man asked me the name of the place where I took my ticket.  ‘I don’t remember,’ said I.  ’How should I know the name of any of these places?—­it’s as long as my arm.  I’ve got it written down somewhere.’  ‘Pray, sir,’ said the man, after a little pause, ‘are you a foreigner?’ ‘No,’ I replied, ’I am not a foreigner; I’m a sculptor.’”

The consequence of this almost childish carelessness was that Gibson had always to be accompanied on his long journeys either by a friend or a courier.  While Mr. Ben lived, he usually took his brother in charge to some extent; and the relation between them was mutual, for while John Gibson found the sculpture, Mr. Ben found the learning, so that Gibson used often to call him “my classical dictionary.”  In 1847, however, Mr. Ben was taken ill.  He got a bad cold, and would have no doctor, take no medicine.  “I consider Mr. Ben,” his brother writes, “as one of the most amiable of human beings—­too good for this world—­but he will take no care against colds, and when ill he is a stubborn animal.”  That summer Gibson went again to England, and when, he came back found Mr. Ben no better.  For four years the younger brother lingered on, and in 1851 died suddenly from the effects of a fall in walking.  Gibson was thus left quite alone, but for his pupil Miss Hosmer, who became to him more than a daughter.

During his later years Gibson took largely to tinting his statues—­ colouring them faintly with flesh-tones and other hues like nature; and this practice he advocated with all the strength of his single-minded nature.  All visitors to the great Exhibition of 1862 will remember his beautiful tinted Venus, which occupied the place of honour in a light temple erected for the purpose by another distinguished artistic Welshman, Mr. Owen Jones, who did much towards raising the standard of taste in the English people.

In January, 1866, John Gibson had a stroke of paralysis, from which he never recovered.  He died within the month, and was buried in the English cemetery at Rome.  Both his brothers had died before him; and he left the whole of his considerable fortune to the Royal Academy in England.  An immense number of his works are in the possession of the Academy, and are on view there throughout the year.