practical apology. For purity, for guilelessness, for exquisite
appreciation of the true purpose of sculpture as the highest embodiment
of beauty of form, John Gibson's art stands unsurpassed in all the
annals of modern statuary.




IV.

WILLIAM HERSCHEL, BANDSMAN.


Old Isaac Herschel, the oboe-player of the King's Guard in Hanover, had
served with his regiment for many years in the chilly climate of North
Germany, and was left at last broken down in health and spirits by the
many hardships of several severe European campaigns. Isaac Herschel was
a man of tastes and education above his position; but he had married a
person in some respects quite unfitted for him. His good wife, Anna,
though an excellent housekeeper and an estimable woman in her way, had
never even learned to write; and when the pair finally settled down to
old age in Hanover, they were hampered by the cares of a large family of
ten children. Respectable poverty in Germany is even more pressing than
in England; the decent poor are accustomed to more frugal fare and
greater privations than with us; and the domestic life of the Herschel
family circle must needs have been of the most careful and penurious
description. Still, Isaac Herschel dearly loved his art, and in it he
found many amends and consolations for the sordid shifts and troubles of
a straitened German household. All his spare time was given to music,
and in his later days he was enabled to find sufficient pupils to eke