Soon after this Canova made his first essay to represent the human form in marble, in hours not devoted to the more mechanical duties of his profession, and he received the best mark of Toretto's esteem in being adopted as a son, with permission to bear his name—a privilege that he never took advantage of.

His engagement with Toretto, during which he had made no inconsiderable progress, was terminated by the removal of the latter; and all hope of that sculptor's aid proving of avail being abruptly cut off by his death, there appeared imminent danger of the aspiring Antonio having to retire to his grand-father's workshop, and endure the misery of his talents being buried in the obscurity of his native village. It was, therefore, with a delight of no ordinary kind that he received an invitation from his noble patron to repair to Venice, whither he joyfully went in his fifteenth year.

It would be amusing to speculate on the emotions; with which the youth, from a village in the recesses of the hills, must have contemplated the beautiful city, with its Rialto and numerous other bridges, its magnificent piazza of St. Mark's, and its elegant palaces, adorned with marble fronts and with pillars exhibiting the various orders of architecture, or those lustrous chambers decorated with gilding and tapes try, in which the privileged commercial aristocracy maintained a splendour that threw the old rural nobility utterly into the shade.

Canova was forthwith introduced to the Academy of Fine Arts, whose character he subsequently did so much to raise, and had a residence in the palace of his patron. These attentions, far from spoiling him, seem only to have stimulated his exertions: he applied himself to his beloved art with exemplary diligence, studied at all hours, and exercised his powers in every way likely to lead to their growth and improvement. The gallery of the palace, at that time be-longing to the Farsetti, divided his attention with the Academy. This noble institution was thrown open to youths desirous of studying the fine arts; and they were, without expense, supplied with every requisite for study, and with the assistance of an able director. Canova's regularity and industry attracted the attention of the munificent owner, alike distinguished by knowledge of literature and taste in art, for whom he sculptured in marble two baskets filled with different fruit and flowers. They still remain, though somewhat injured, on the balustrade of the grand stair leading to the gallery, whose treasures are unfortunately dispersed.

While studying here, he formed a strange and fanciful attachment, which gave a colour to his life, and aided in the formation of some of his finest conceptions. One day he observed a mild, beauteous, delicate, graceful - looking female enter the gallery, attended by a friend, who daily departing returned before the hour of closing, leaving the former to employ herself in studies, which chiefly consisted in drawing from antique heads. His eye was arrested as the eye of genius only can be, and his heart touched with such sympathetic sensations as the pure alone can feel. For some time he worshipped her at a distance, as an Indian does a star. Accident first placed the youthful pair near each other, and henceforth Canova was irresistibly attracted to select such models as brought him nearest the fair unknown. Once, while leaning on the shoulder of her attendant, she praised his work in accents that were like angelic music to his ear, and long treasured up in the most consecrated spot of his memory. At length this object of his mute adoration was absent, and the young and aspiring sculptor was incon-solable. Ere long, however, the attendant ap-peared, but alone, and habited in deep mourning. Canova's heart failed at the sight; but mustering up courage as she was departing, he ventured to inquire for her friend. "La Signora Julia is dead," replied she, as, bursting into tears, she hurried away, leaving the artist to subdue and digest his agonising grief.

One could have imagined the thoughtful Antonio, who, in after years, twice on the eve of marriage, was effectually deterred by the fear of matrimony diverting his attention from his professional pursuits, free from the weakness of having indulged in such dreams, but the reverse seems, in some measure, to justify the poet's questions—

"In joyous youth, what soul hath never known, Thought, feeling, taste, harmonious to its own? Who hath not paused while beauty's pensive eye Asked from his heart the homage of a sigh? Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame, The power of grace, the magic of a name?"

However, Canova did not "haunt the gloomy shrine of hopeless love," but the form of the fair student of ancient art is said to have been present to his fancy in the hours of severe thought and solitary labour, wherein he prepared for the world those proofs of genius which have exalted him on so elevated a pedestal of fame. His ambition continued to wax stronger as his experience increased, and perpetually prompted him to great exertions. Nothing, indeed, could surpass the ardour of his aspirations and the restlessness of his spirit, which enthusiastically longed for that distinction, of whose arrival it was prescient. Ere long, conceiving himself qualified to perform something worthy of his ambition, he modelled the "Group of Orpheus and Eurydice," life size, and carved it in soft Venetian stone. It was exhibited in 1776, on the annual festival of Ascension, when it was customary for artists to expose their recently-finished works to public view in the square of St. Mark's. On its being received with great applause, he rapturously exclaimed, "This praise has made me a sculptor." He soon after opened his first studio, and his next work was a statue of Esculapius in marble, which was visited by him a few months previous to his death. On surveying it he declared sorrowfully, "For these forty years my progress has not corresponded with the indications of excellence in this work of my youth."

Meantime he studied diligently among the remains of ancient art, and stored his mind from nature with images of loveliness, to be used when a fitting occasion offered itself of presenting them. The people of Venice felt the beauty of Canova's works, and rewarded their merit with a small pension on his departure for Rome, in the twenty-fourth year of his life. There he found a kind and active friend in Gavin Hamilton, the Scottish painter, author of "Schola Italica Picture," and a cordial welcome from the sculptors of the capital. The Venetian Ambassador introduced him to the society of the learned and the noble, besides giving him a commission for a group of Theseus and the Minotaur in marble, which he executed with brilliant success. It was exhibited by torch-light, in the summer of 1782, at a banquet given on purpose by the Ambassador to the first men in Rome; who, with one voice, bestowed on it the highest praise. His subsequent career was a succession of triumphant achievements in art. His fame travelled over Europe. The King of England and the Emperor of France became his zealous patrons; the Pope in 1810 conferred the title of Marquis of Ischia, along with a pension, and refused to allow his choice works to go out of Rome; and he, whose grand-father's ambition had been to see him mason of an obscure village, died on the 13th of October, 1822, in possession of numerous distinctions, boundless honour, and imperishable fame.

No better instance could be produced of the might of genius, when true to itself; and the power of industry, when fairly directed.

While Canova was studying in the stately palace of the Falieri, gazing with delighted eye on their noble specimens of art—gliding in their long, narrow gondola, beneath the Rialto, or Bridge of Sighs—and surveying with a feeling of pleasing wonder the mag-nificent church of St. Mark, and the other rare works of architecture in which Venice abounded, a nascent sculptor, destined for half-a-century to charm the hearts of men with the beauty of his designs, was passing a somewhat miserable childhood in the marsh-surrounded capital of Denmark.