The kind Mr. Matthews invited him to his house, where his wife explained Homer and Milton to him. They helped him also in his self-culture—giving him lessons in Greek and Latin, the study of which he prosecuted at home. By dint of patience and perseverance, his drawing improved so much that he obtained a commission from a lady, to execute six original drawings in black chalk of subjects in Homer. His first commission! What an event in the artist’s life! A surgeon’s first fee, a lawyer’s first retainer, a legislator’s first speech, a singer’s first appearance behind the foot-lights, an author’s first book, are not any of them more full of interest to the aspirant for fame than the artist’s first commission. The boy at once proceeded to execute the order, and he was both well praised and well paid for his work. At fifteen Flaxman entered a pupil at the Royal Academy. Notwithstanding his retiring disposition, he soon became known among the students, and great things were expected of him. Nor were their expectations disappointed: in his fifteenth year he gained the silver prize, and next year he became a candidate for the gold one. Everybody prophesied that he would carry off the medal, for there was none who surpassed him in ability and industry. Yet he lost it, and the gold medal was adjudged to a pupil who was not afterwards heard of. This failure on the part of the youth was really of service to him; for defeats do not long cast down the resolute-hearted, but only serve to call forth their real powers. “Give me time,” said he to his father, “and I will yet produce works that the Academy will be proud to recognise.” He redoubled his efforts, spared no pains, designed and modelled incessantly, and made steady if not rapid progress. But meanwhile poverty threatened his father’s household; the plaster-cast trade yielded a very bare living; and young Flaxman, with resolute self-denial, curtailed his hours of study, and devoted himself to helping his father in the humble details of his business. He laid aside his Homer to take up the plaster-trowel. He was willing to work in the humblest department of the trade so that his father’s family might be supported, and the wolf kept from the door. To this drudgery of his art he served a long apprenticeship; but it did him good. It familiarised him with steady work, and cultivated in him the spirit of patience. The discipline may have been hard, but it was wholesome.