UNCLE IN ENGLAND. 269 



but for the circumstance of the Greek painters, 

 his talent might have remained unknown even to 

 himself. 



" But," said Caroline, "his own pupil, Giotto, 

 may be opposed to your theory ; you know he was 

 a shepherd boy, whom Cimabue found accurately 

 drawing the figures of his sheep on the sand." 



" I confess," said Mary, " that does seem 

 rather against me, but we do not know what 

 previous opportunities he might have had. Ca- 

 nova's genius, it is said, shewed itself in the 

 obscurity of village life ; yet we learn from his 

 Memoirs that he lived with his grandfather, who, 

 though only a common stone-cutter, was in the 

 habit of designing and working architectural 

 ornaments, and surely that accounts for the ten- 

 dency of his pupil's mind." 



"Very well," replied Caroline, c ' I will leave 

 you in possession of Canova, and only ask 

 what you think of West the great West ? 

 Belonging to the sect of Quakers, who disap- 

 prove of making any representation of the 

 human form, and born in North America, where 

 the arts were not at that time cultivated, he had 

 never seen any sort of drawing ; yet while he 

 was a very little boy, being desired to watch 

 a sleeping infant, he was so charmed with its 

 little face and attitude, that he made an ex- 

 cellent sketch of it with a bit of half-burned 



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