Gibson replied, with many stammerings, that he hoped his slender means
would suffice for his personal needs, but that if Canova would only
condescend to give him instruction, to make him his pupil, to let him
model in his studio, he would be eternally grateful. Canova was one of
the most noble and lovable of men. He acceded at once to Gibson's
request, and Gibson never forgot his kind and fatherly assistance. "Dear
generous master," the Welsh sculptor wrote many years after, when Canova
had long passed away, "I see you before me now. I hear your soft
Venetian dialect, and your kindly words inspiring my efforts and gently
correcting my defects. My heart still swells with grateful recollection
of you."

Canova told his new pupil to devote a few days first to seeing the
sights of Rome; but Gibson was impatient to begin at once. "I shall be
at your studio to-morrow morning," the ardent Welshman said; and he kept
his word. Canova, pleased with so much earnestness and promptitude, set
him to work forthwith upon a clay model from his own statue of the
Pugilist. Gibson went to the task with a will, moulding the clay as best
he could into shape; but he still knew so little of the technical ways
of regular sculptors that he tried to model this work from the clay
alone, though its pose was such that it could not possibly hold together
without an iron framework. Canova saw his error and smiled, but let him
go on so that he might learn his business by experience. In a day or two
the whole thing, of course, collapsed by its own weight; and then Canova
called in a blacksmith and showed the eager beginner how the mechanical
skeleton was formed with iron bars, and interlacing crosses of wood and
wire. This was quite a new idea to Gibson, who had modelled hitherto
only in his own self-taught fashion with moist clay, letting it support
its own weight as best it might. Another pupil then fleshed out the iron
skeleton with clay, and roughly shaped it to the required figure, so