ined it after the emperor's downfall; which is not what every
painter did.

PEACE

Peace has a dwelling near a river
Where the darkened waters quiver.
Where the ripple we can hear
Bursting on the pebbly shore,
Making music soft and clear
For evermore, for evermore.

Peace has a dwelling near a wood
Where the cooing pigeons brood,
Where the sweet-voiced nightingale
Unto the moon her song doth pour,
And songsters swell the echoing vale
For evermore, for evermore.

Peace has a dwelling in the soul
That can its hopes and fears control;
In silent wood or city's din
Alike it may be found to dwell;
Its dearest home is that within
The chastened heart's profoundest cell.

Peace has a dwelling where no more
The ear can hear the torrent roar,
Or lists the rippling of the river,
As softly it turns up its wave,
Where never more the moon-beams quiver
Within the silent grave.

Peace--oh, thou white-garmented
Maiden, with the flower-decked head,
Come, make thy mansion in my heart!
A tenant thou shalt freely rest,
And thou shalt soothe each bitter smart
That racks the chambers of my breast

CHARLES DRYDEN.

[From Household Words.]

ALCHEMY AND GUNPOWDER.

The day-dream of mankind has ever been the Unattainable. To sigh for
what is beyond our reach is, from infancy to age, a fixed condition of
our nature. To it we owe all the improvement that distinguishes
civilized from savage life--to it we are indebted for all the great
discoveries which, at long intervals, have rewarded thought.

Though the motives which stimulated the earliest inquiries were
frequently undefined, and, if curiously examined, would be found to be
sometimes questionable, it has rarely happened that the world has not
benefited by them in the end. Thus Astrology, which ascribed to the
stars an influence over the actions and destinies of man; Magic, which
attempted to reverse the laws of nature, and Alchemy, which aimed at
securing unlimited powers of self-reward; all tended to the final
establishment of useful science.

Of none of the sciences whose laws are fully understood, is this
description truer than of that now called Chemistry, which once was
Alchemy. That "knowledge of the substance or composition of bodies,"
which the Arabic root of b