fortunate, too, in the exact moment of his residence: Rome then
contained at once, besides himself, the two truest sculptors of the
present century, Canova the Venetian, and Thorwaldsen the Dane. Both
these great masters were singularly free from jealousy, rivalry, or
vanity. In their perfect disinterestedness and simplicity of character
they closely resembled Gibson himself. The ardent and pure-minded young
Welshman, who kept himself so unspotted from the world in his utter
devotion to his chosen art, could not fail to derive an elevated
happiness from his daily intercourse with these two noble and
sympathetic souls.

After Gibson had been for some time in Canova's studio, his illustrious
master told him that the sooner he took to modelling a life-size figure
of his own invention, the better. So Gibson hired a studio (with what
means he does not tell us in his short sketch of his own life) close to
Canova's, so that the great Venetian was able to drop in from time to
time and assist him with his criticism and judgment. How delightful is
the friendly communion of work implied in all this graceful artistic
Roman life! How different from the keen competition and jealous rivalry
which too often distinguishes our busy money-getting English existence!
In 1819, two years after Gibson's arrival at Rome, he began to model his
Mars and Cupid, a more than life-size group, on which he worked
patiently and lovingly for many months. When it was nearly finished, one
day a knock came at the studio door. After the knock, a handsome young
man entered, and announced himself brusquely as the Duke of Devonshire.
"Canova sent me," he said, "to see what you were doing." Gibson wasn't
much accustomed to dukes in those days--he grew more familiar with them
later on--and we may be sure the poor young artist's heart beat a little
more fiercely than usual when the stranger asked him the price of his
Mars and Cupid in marble. The sculptor had never yet sold a statue, and