John
Gibson's generous bounty. In John's wealthy days, he and Mr. Ben used
to escape every summer from the heat and dust of Rome--which is
unendurable in July and August--to the delightfully cool air and
magnificent mountain scenery of the Tyrol. "I cannot tell you how well
I am," he writes on one of these charming 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 day, or men in swallow-tail coats and high collars.

Another work which Gibson designed during this visit possesse