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. His Liverpool
friends, now thoroughly proud of their stone-cutter, insisted upon
giving him a public banquet. Glasgow followed the same example; and the
simple-minded sculptor, unaccustomed to such honours, hardly knew how to
bear his blushes decorously upon him. During this visit, he received a
command to execute a statue of the queen. Gibson was at first quite
disconcerted at such an awful summons. "I don't know how to behave to
queens," he said. "Treat her like a lady," said a friend; and Gibson,
following the advice, found it sufficiently answered all the necessities
of the situation. But when he went to arrange with the Prince Consort
about the statue, he was rather puzzled what he should do about
measuring the face, which he always did for portrait sculpture with a
pair of compasses. All these difficulties were at last smoothed over;
and Gibson was also permitted to drape the queen's statue in Greek
costume, for in his artistic conscientiousness he absolutely refused to
degrade sculpture by representing women in the fashionable gown of the