and assistance of his younger brother, Mr. Ben, as he always called
him, who was also a sculptor, though of far less merit than John
Gibson himself. Mr. Ben came to Rome younger than John, and he
learned to be a great classical scholar, and to read those Greek
and Latin books which John only knew at second hand, but from whose
beautiful fanciful stories of gods and heroes he derived all the
subjects for his works of statuary. His other brother, Solomon, a
strange, wild, odd man, in whom the family genius had degenerated
into mere eccentricity, never did anything for his own livelihood,
but lived always upon John Gibson's generous bounty. In John's
wealthy days, he and Mr. Ben used to escape every summer from the
heat and dust of Rome--which is unendurable in July and August--to
the delightfully cool air and magnificent mountain scenery of the
Tyrol. "I cannot tell you how well I am," he writes on one of
these charming visits, "and so is Mr. Ben. Every morning we take
our walks in the woods here. I feel as if I were new modelled."
Another passage in one of these summer tourist letters well
deserves to be copied here, as it shows the artist's point of view
of labours like Telford's and Stephenson's. "From Bormio," he
says, "the famous road begins which passes over the Stelvio into
the Tyrol; the highest carriage-road in the world. We began the
ascent early in the morning. It is magnificent and wonderful. Man
shows his talents, his power over great difficulties, in the
construction of these roads. Behold the cunning little workman--he
comes, he explores, and he says, 'Yes, I will send a carriage and
horses over these mighty mountains;' and, by Jove, you are drawn up
among the eternal snows. I am a great admirer of these roads."

In 1844 Gibson paid his first visit to England, a very different
England indeed to the one he had left twenty-seven years earlier.