Gib's on, John

R. A., a distinguished English sculptor. в. 1791. His early years were pa ed in a stone-mason's shop at Liverpool, until Mr. Roscoe (the historian of Leo X., .), discovering G.'s remarkabl aptitude for art, sent him to Rome to study under Canova. In that city he pa ed nearly the whole of his after-life, becoming a pupil of Thorwaldsen after the death of his first great master. G. greatly excelled in portrait statuary, and by the study of the antique rose to ideal purity, and a thorough realization in the grace of form. His chief works are Mars and Cupid, now in the Duke of Devons hire's Chats worth Collection; Psyche borne by the Zephyrs, executed for Sir Geo. Beaumont, The Wounded Amazon (in the Grosvenor Gallery); and the famous Tinted Venus, which appeared in the London Great Exhibition of 1862. Among his portrait-statues, those of Husk is son and Peel, George Stephen son (the engineer), and Queen Victoria, are his finest productions. G.'s grand innovation of tinting his figures - which he defended by a reference from geban, Goth. gib an, A.S. gif an, Icel. gefa, to give Gif, conj . [AS. See IF.] If. (Old form of if , frequently found in the early English writers.) Giff'-gaff, n . Reciprocal accommodation; - an old English phrase resuscitated by Sir Walter Scott. Gifford, ( jif'ford .) a village of Scotland, 4 m. from Hadding ton; pop . 600. The celebrated reformer, Johu Knox, q. v., was B. here in 1505. Gif'fy, n. Same as JIFFY, q. v.