Years ago, the writer in several places presented to the consideration of American Art-lovers the plaster bust of "The Old Trapper," as one of the foremost things which up to that period had been done by any man for such enfranchisement as that referred to above. Palmer, the noble master and teacher of the sculptor who created this bust, had done many things entirely outside of the old ring-fence, had made himself famous by them; but this, on some accounts, seemed to us the chief, because the most audacious of all. What did it represent? Simply an old, worn, peril-tried, battle-scarred man, who had fought grislies and Indians,--walked leagues with his canoe on his back,--camped under snow-peaks,--dined on his rifle's market,--had nothing but his heroic pluck, patience, and American individuality, to fascinate people,--and now, under a rough fur cap of his own making, showed a face without a line that was Greek in it, and said to Launt Thompson, "Make me, if you dare!" What we then admired in "The Old Trapper" we now admire in Miss Hosmer's "Zenobia." * * * * * There now stands on exhibition in this country one of the finest examples of the spirit which animates our best American artists in their selection of ideals, and their execution of them on the catholic principle. Miss Hosmer has not thought it necessary to color her statue, because she knew that the utmost capability of sculpture is the expression of form,--that, had she colored it, she would have brought it into competition with a Nature entirely beyond her in mere details, and made it a doll instead of a statue. Neither has she made it a travel-stained woman with a carpet-bag, because in history all mean details melt away, and we see its actors at great distances like the Athené, and because our whole idea of Zenobia is this:-- _A Queen led in Chains._ Neither has she made her Zenobia a Greek woman, because she was a Palmyrene. What she has made her is this:-- _Our idea of Zenobia won from Romance and History._ This Zenobia is a queen. She is proud as she was when she sat in pillared state, under gorgeous canopies, with a hundred slaves at her beck, and a devoted people within reach of her couriers. She does not tremble or swerve, though she has her head down. That head is bowed only because she is a woman, and she will not give the look of love to the man who has forced her after him. Her lip has no weakness in it. She is a _lady_, and knows that there is something higher than joy or pain. Miss Hosmer has evidently believed nothing of the legends to the effect that she did swerve afterward, else she could not have put that noble soul in her heroine's mouth. Or did she believe the swerving, she must have felt that Aurelian had the right, after all pain and wrong, to come and claim the queen,--to say,-- "I did all this wrong _for_ you, and you were worth it."