introduced many wealthy connoisseurs to the rising sculptor's
studio. That same winter, also, the Duke of Devonshire came again,
and commissioned a bas-relief in marble (which is now at Chatsworth
House, with many other of Gibson's works), at a paying price, too,
which was a great point for the young man's scanty exchequer.

Unfortunately, Gibson has not left us any notice of how he managed
to make both ends meet during this long adult student period at
Rome. Information on that point would indeed be very interesting;
but so absorbed was the eager Welshman always in his art, that he
seldom tells us anything at all about such mere practical every-day
matters as bread and butter. To say the truth, he cared but little
about them. Probably he had lived in a very simple penurious style
during his whole studenthood, taking his meals at a cafe or eating-
house, and centering all his affection and ideas upon his beloved
studio. But now wealth and fame began to crowd in upon him, almost
without the seeking. Visitors to Rome began to frequent the
Welshman's rooms, and the death of "the great and good Canova,"
which occurred in 1822, while depriving Gibson of a dearly loved
friend, left him, as it were, that great master's successor.
Towards him and Thorwaldsen, indeed, Gibson always cherished a most
filial regard. "May I not be proud," he writes long after, "to
have known such men, to have conversed with them, watched all their
proceedings, heard all their great sentiments on art? Is it not a
pleasure to be so deeply in their debt for instruction?" And now
the flood of visitors who used to flock to Canova's studio began to
transfer their interest to Gibson's. Commission after commission
was offered him, and he began to make money faster than he could
use it. His life had always been simple and frugal--the life of a
working man with high aims and grand ideals: he hardly knew now how