“The dearest wish of my heart is gratified in that I am acknowledged by Gibson as a pupil. He has been resident in Rome thirty-four years, and leads the van. I am greatly in luck. He has just finished the model of the statue of the queen, and, as his room is vacant, he permits me to use it, and I am now in his own studio. I have also a little room for work which was formerly occupied by Canova, and perhaps inspiration may be drawn from the walls.” The first winter in Rome was passed in modeling from the antique, Mr. Gibson desiring to assure himself of the correctness of Miss Hosmer’s eye, and the soundness of her knowledge; Hesper evincing the possession of the imaginative and creative power. From the first, Mr. Gibson expressed himself more than satisfied with her power of imitating the roundness and softness of flesh, saying, upon one occasion, that he had never seen it surpassed and not often equaled. Her first attempt at original design in Rome was a bust of Daphne, quickly succeeded by another of the Medusa--the beautiful Medusa--and a lovely thing it is, faultless in form, and intense in its expression of horror and agony, without trenching on the physically painful. We have already spoken of the warm friend Miss Hosmer made for herself during her winter at St. Louis, in the head of the family at whose house she was a guest. This gentleman, as a God-speed to the young artist on her journey to Rome, sent her, on the eve of departure, an order to a large amount for the first figure she should model, leaving her entirely free to select her own time and subject. A statue of Œnone was the result, which is now in the house of Mr. Crow, at St. Louis, and which gave such satisfaction to its possessor and his fellow-townsmen, that an order was forwarded to Miss Hosmer for a statue for the Public Library at St. Louis, on the same liberal terms. Beatrice Cenci, which has won so many golden opinions from critics and connoisseurs, was sent to St. Louis in fulfillment of this order.