314 QENIUS AND TALENT. 



circumstances, would liave considered liimself a 

 divinely gifted sculptor, and would have begun at 

 once turning out marble statues by the light of 

 nature as fast as he could make them. But Gib- 

 son knew bfttter. He knew he was a genius, and 

 he resolved to give himself a fair chance. In his 

 spare hours he went to an anatomy-class in Liver- 

 pool, among the young surgeons, and thoroughly 

 learnt the bones and muscles of the human frame. 

 He studied drawing, modelling, and carving; he 

 omitted no chance of seeing and comparing Greek 

 and Italian sculpture ; and at last, with what 

 slender means he had been able to save from his 

 scanty wages, he went to Rome itself to study 

 under Canova, the greatest master then living. 

 While there, he met a young man of talent, a 

 rising sculptor, who had come to Rome, like him- 

 self, to look at the statues, but who disdained the 

 aid of masters and instructors, as beneath his 

 greatness. Gibson thought very poorly of this 

 self-sufficient rising sculptor. The young man 

 went home to England, made statues by the light 

 of nature, and was utterly forgotten : Gibson 

 stopped at Rome, spent years of his life under his 

 distinguished master, wasted hours — as many 

 people would have said — over the mere turns 

 and folds of a piece of drapery, and rose in the 

 end to be the greatest sculptor whom England 



