then to draw horse or man by mere guess-work; he went out and studied
the subject at first hand. There are in that single trait two great
elements of success in no matter what line of life--supreme carefulness,
and perfect honesty of workmanship.

When Jack was nine years old, his father determined to emigrate to
America, and for that purpose went to Liverpool to embark for the United
States. But when he had got as far as the docks, Mrs. Gibson, good soul,
frightened at the bigness of the ships (a queer cause of alarm), refused
plumply ever to put her foot on one of them. So her husband, a dutiful
man with a full sense of his wife's government upon him, consented
unwillingly to stop in Liverpool, where he settled down to work again as
a gardener. Hitherto, Jack and his brothers had spoken nothing but
Welsh; but at Liverpool he was put to school, and soon learned to
express himself correctly and easily in English. Liverpool was a very
different place for young Jack Gibson from Conway: there were no hills
and valleys there, to be sure, but there were shops--such shops! all
full of the most beautiful and highly coloured prints and caricatures,
after the fashion of the days when George IV. was still Prince Regent.
All his spare time he now gave up to diligently copying the drawings
which he saw spread out in tempting array before him in the shop-
windows. Flattening his little nose against the glass panes, he used to
look long and patiently at a single figure, till he had got every detail
of its execution fixed firmly on his mind's eye; and then he would go
home hastily and sketch it out at once while the picture was still quite
fresh in his vivid memory. Afterwards he would return to the shop-
window, and correct his copy by the original till it was completely
finished. No doubt the boy did all this purely for his own amusement;
but at the same time he was quite unconsciously teaching himself to draw
under a very careful and accurate master--himself. Already, however, he