Michael Angelo was a great and pure delight. Before he was nineteen, he
began to think of a big picture which he hoped to paint some day; and he
carried it out as well as he was able in his own self-taught fashion.
For as yet, it must be remembered, Gibson had had no regular artistic
instruction: there was none such, indeed, to be had at all in Liverpool
in his day; and there was no real art going on in the town in any way.
Mr. Francis, his master, was no artist; nor was there anybody at the
works who could teach him: for as soon as Mr. Francis found out the full
measure of Gibson's abilities, he dismissed his German artist Luge, and
put the clever boy entirely in his place. At this time, Gibson was only
receiving six shillings a week as wages; but Mr. Francis got good prices
for many of his works, and was not ashamed even to put his own name upon
the promising lad's artistic performances.

Mr. Roscoe did not merely encourage the young sculptor; he set him also
on the right road for ultimate success. He urged Gibson to study
anatomy, without which no sculpture worthy of the name is possible.
Gibson gladly complied, for he knew that Michael Angelo had been a great
anatomist, and Michael was just at that moment the budding sculptor's
idol and ideal. But how could he learn? A certain Dr. Vose was then
giving lectures on anatomy to young surgeons at Liverpool, and on
Roscoe's recommendation he kindly admitted the eager student gratis to
his dissecting-room. Gibson dissected there with a will in all his spare
moments, and as he put his mind into the work he soon became well versed
in the construction of the human body.

From the day that Gibson arrived at man's estate, the great dream of his
life was to go to Rome. For Rome is to art what London is to industry--
the metropolis in its own way of the entire earth. But travelling in
1810 cost a vast deal of money; and the poor Liverpool marble-cutter