TH [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. led; nor need it excite any wonder that in pursuit of the ideal, they accidentally hit upon a good deal that was real. The labors, therefore, of the Arabian physicians were not thrown away, though they entangled the feet of science in mazes, from which escape was only effected, after the lapse of centuries of misdirected efforts. From the period we have last spoken of, until the commencement of the eleventh century, the only Alchemist of note is the Arabian Geber, who, though he wrote on the perfections of metals, of the new-found art of making gold, in a word, on the philosopher's stone, has only descended to our times as the founder of that jargon which passes under the name of "gibberish." He was, however, a great authority in the middle ages, and allusions to "Geber's cooks," and "Geber's kitchen," are frequent among those who at length saw the error of their ways, after wasting their substance in the vain search for the elixir. A longer interval might have elapsed but for the voice of Peter the Hermit, whose fanatical scheme for the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre was the cause of that gradual absorption, by the nations of the West, of the learning which had so long been buried in the East. crusaders, or those, rather, who visited the shores of Syria under their protection—the men whose skill in medicine and letters rendered them useful to the invading armies-acquired The 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 both words implies, establishes a fact in place of a chimera. Experimental philosophy has made Alchemy an impossible belief, but the faith in it was natural in an age when reason a knowledge of the Arabian languages, and of was seldom appealed to. The credulity which accepted witchcraft for a truth, was not likely to reject the theory of the transmutation of metals, nor strain at the dogma of perpetual youth and health; the concomitants of the Philosopher's Stone. the sciences cultivated by Arabian philosophers, and this knowledge they disseminated through Europe. Some part of it, it is true, was derived from the Moors in Spain, but it was all conveyed in a common tongue which began now to be understood. To this era belong the The Alchemists claim for their science the names of Alfonso the Wise, King of Castile; of remotest antiquity possible, but it was not until Isaac Beimiram, the son of Solomon the physithree or four centuries after the Christian era cian; of Hali Abbas, the scholar of Abimeher that the doctrine of transmutation began to Moyses, the son of Sejar; of Aben Sina, better spread. It was among the Arabian physicians known as Avicenna, and sometimes called Abothat it took root. Those learned men, through hali; of Averroes of Cordova, surnamed the whom was transmitted so much that was useful Commentator; of Rasis, who is also called in astronomy, in mathematics, and in medicine, Almanzor and Albumasar; and of John of were deeply tinctured with the belief in an Damascus, whose name has been latinized into universal elixir, whose properties gave the Johannes Damascenus. All these, physicians power of multiplying gold, of prolonging life by profession, were more or less professors of indefinitely, and of making youth perpetual. | alchemy; and besides these were such as ArteThe discoveries which they made of the suc- phius, who wrote alchemical tracts about the cessful application of mercury in many diseases, year 1130, but who deserves rather to be reled them to suppose that this agent contained membered for the cool assertion which he makes within itself the germ of all curative influences, in his "Wisdom of Secrets" that, at the time he and was the basis of all other metals. An wrote he had reached the patriarchal-or fabEastern imagination, ever prone to heighten ulous-age of one thousand and twenty-five the effects of nature, was not slow to ascribe years! a preternatural force to this medicine, but not finding it in its simple state, the practitioners of the new science had recourse to combination, in the hope, by that means, of attaining their object. To fix mercury became their first endeavor, and this fixation they described as "catching the flying bird of Hermes." Once Of the former, many wonderful stories are embarked in the illusory experiment, it is easy told: such, for instance, as his having given a to perceive how far the Alchemists might be banquet to the king of the Romans, in the gar The thirteenth century came, and with it came two men who stand first, as they then stood alone, in literary and scientific knowledge. One was a German, the other an Englishman; the first was Albertus Magnus, the last Roger Bacon. dens of his cloister at Cologne, when he converted the intensity of winter into a season of summer, full of flowers and fruits, which disappeared when the banquet was over; and his having constructed a marvelous automaton, called "Androïs," which, like the invention of his contemporary, Roger Bacon, was said to be capable of auguring all questions, past, present, and to come. To know more than the rest of the world in any respect, but particularly in natural philosophy, was a certain method by which to earn the name of a necromancer in the middle ages, and there are few whose occult fame has stood higher than that of Roger Bacon. He was afraid, therefore, to speak plainly-indeed, it was the custom of the early philosophers to couch their knowledge in what Bacon himself calls the "tricks of obscurity;" and in his celebrated "Epistola de Secretis," he adverts to the possibility of his being obliged to do the same thing, through "the greatness of the secrets which he shall handle." With regard to the invention of his greatest secret, we shall give the words in which he speaks of the properties of gunpowder, and afterward show in what terms he concealed his knowledge. Noyses," he says, 'may be made in the aire like thunders, yea, with greater horror than those that come of nature; for a little matter fitted to the quantity of a thimble, maketh a horrible noise and wonderful lightning. And this is done after sundry fashions, whereby any citie or armie may be destroyed." A more accurate description of the explosion of gunpowder could scarcely be given, and it is not to be supposed that Bacon simply confined himself to the theory of his art, when he knew so well the consequences arising from a practical application of it. On this head there is a legend extant, which has not, to our knowledge, been printed before, from which we may clearly see why he contented himself with the cabalistic form in which he conveyed his knowledge of what he deemed a fatal secret. Attached to Roger Bacon's laboratory, and a zealous assistant in the manifold occupations with which the learned Franciscan occupied himself, was a youthful student, whose name is stated to have been Hubert de Dreux. He was a Norman, and many of the attributes of that people were conspicuous in his character. He was of a quick intelligence, and hasty courage, fertile in invention, and prompt in action, eloquent of discourse, and ready of hand; all excellent qualities, to which was superadded an insatiable curiosity. Docile to receive instruction, and apt to profit by it, Hubert became a great favorite with the philosopher, and to him Bacon expounded many of the secrets-or supposed secrets-of the art which he strove to bring to perfection. He instructed him also in the composition of certain medicines, which Bacon himself believed might be the means of prolonging life, though not to the indefinite extent dreamed of by those who put their whole faith in the Great Elixir. But there never yet was an adept in any art or science who freely communicated to his pupil the full amount of his own knowledge; something for experience to gather, or for ingenuity to discover, is always kept in reserve, and the instructions of Roger Bacon stopped short at one point. He was himself engaged in the prosecution of that chemical secret which he rightly judged to be a dangerous one, and, while he experimented with the compound of sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal, he kept himself apart from his general laboratory, and wrought in a separate cell, to which not even Hubert had access. To know that the friar had a mysterious occupation, which, more than the making of gold or the universal medicine, engrossed him, was enough of itself to rouse the young man's curiosity; but when to this was added the fact, that, from time to time, strange and mysterious noises were heard, accompanied by bright corruscations and a new and singular odor, penetrating through the chinks close to which his eyes were stealthily riveted, Hubert's eagerness to know all that his master concealed had no limit. He resolved to discover the secret, even though he should perish in the attempt; he feared that there was good reason for the accusation of dealing in the Black Art, which, more than all others, the monks of Bacon's own convent countenanced; but this apprehension only stimulated him the more. For some time Hubert waited without an opportunity occurring for gratifying the secret longing of his heart; at last it presented itself. To afford medical assistance to the sick, was, perhaps, the most useful practice of conventual life, and the monks had always among them practitioners of the healing art, more or less skillful. Of this number, Roger Bacon was the most eminent, not only in the monastery to which he belonged, but in all Oxford. It was about the hour of noon on a gloomy day toward the end of November, in the year 1282, while the Friar and his pupil were severally employed, the former in his secret cell, and the latter in the general laboratory, that there arrived at the gate of the Franciscan convent a messenger on horseback, the bearer of news from Abingdon, that Walter de Losely, the sheriff of Berkshire, had that morning met with a serious accident by a hurt from a lance, and was then lying dangerously wounded at the hostelry of the Checkers in Abingdon, whither he had been hastily conveyed. added, that the leech who had been called in was most anxious for the assistance of the skillful Friar, Roger Bacon, and urgently prayed that he would lose no time in coming to the aid of the wounded knight. The messenger Great excitement prevailed among the monks on the receipt of this intelligence, for Walter de Losely was not only a man of power and influence, but moreover, a great benefactor to their order. Friar Bacon was immediately sought and speedily made his appearance, the urgency of the message admitting of no delay. He hastily enjoined Hubert to continue the preparation of an amalgam which he was desirous of getting into a forward state, and taking with him his case of instruments with the bandages and salves which he thought needful, was soon mounted on an easy, ambling palfrey on his way toward Abingdon, the impatient messenger riding before him to announce his approach. He hastily turned the leaf back and read again. The passage was that one in the Epistola de Secretis" which spoke of the artificial thunder and lightning, and beneath it was the full and precise receipt for its composition. This at once explained the strange noises and the flashes of light which he had so anxiously noticed. Surprising and gratifying as this discovery might be, there was, Hubert thought, something beyond. Roger Bacon, he reasoned, was not one to practice an experiment like this for mere amusement. It was, he felt certain, a new form of invocation, more potent, doubtless, over the beings of another world, than any charm yet recorded. Be it as it might, he would try whether, from the materials around him, it were not in his power to produce the same result. When he was gone, quiet again reigned in the convent, and Hubert de Dreux resumed his occupation. But it did not attract him long. Suddenly he raised his head from the work and his eyes were lit up with a gleam in which joy and fear seemed equally blended. For the first time, for months, he was quite alone. What if he could obtain access to his master's cell and penetrate the mystery in which his labors had been so long enveloped! He cautiously stole to "Here are all the necessary ingredients," he the door of the laboratory, and peeped out into a exclaimed; "this yellowish powder is the well long passage, at the further extremity of which known sulphur, in which I daily bathe the a door opened into a small court where, de-argent-vive; this bitter, glistening substance is tached from the main edifice and screened from the salt of the rock, the salis petræ; and this all observation, was a small building which the black calcination, the third agent. But the proFriar had recently caused to be constructed. portions are given, and here stands a glass He looked about him timorously, fearing lest he cucurbit in which they should be mingled. It might be observed; but there was no cause for is of the form my master mostly uses-round, apprehension, scarcely any inducement could with a small neck and a narrow mouth, to be have prevailed with the superstitious Francis- luted closely, without doubt. He has often told cans to turn their steps willingly in the direction me that the sole regenerating power of the uniof Roger Bacon's solitary cell. verse is heat; yonder furnace shall supply it, and then Hubert de Dreux is his master's equal !” Reassured by the silence, Hubert stole noiselessly onward, and tremblingly approached the forbidden spot. His quick eye saw at a glance that the key was not in the door, and his countenance fell. The Friar's treasure was locked up! He might see something, however, if he could not enter the chamber. He knelt down, | therefore, at the door, and peered through the keyhole. As he pressed against the door, in doing so, it yielded to his touch. In the haste with which Friar Bacon had closed the entrance, the bolt had not been shot. Herbert rose hastily to his feet, and the next moment he was in the cell, looking eagerly round upon the crucibles and alembics, which bore witness to his master's labors. But beyond a general impression of work in hand, there was nothing to be gleaned from this survey. An open parchment volume, in which the Friar had recently been writing, next caught his attention. If the secret should be there in any known language. Hubert knew something of the Hebrew, but nothing yet of Arabic. He was reassured; the characters were familiar to him; the language Latin. He seized the volume, and read the few lines which the Friar had just traced on the last page. They ran thus: "Videas tamen utrum loquar in ænigmate vel secundum veritatem." And, further (which we translate): "He that would see these things shall have the key that openeth and no man shutteth, and when he shall shut no man is able to open again." "But the secret-the secret!" cried Hubert, impatiently, "let me know what 'these things' are!" The short November day was drawing to a close, when, after carefully tending the wounded sheriff, and leaving such instructions with the Abingdon leech as he judged sufficient for his patient's well-doing, Roger Bacon again mounted his palfrey, and turned its head in the direction of Oxford. He was unwilling to be a loiterer after dark, and his beast was equally desirous to be once more comfortably housed, so that his homeward journey was accomplished even more rapidly than his morning excursion; and barely an hour had elapsed when the Friar drew the rein at the foot of the last gentle eminence, close to which lay the walls of the cloistered city. To give the animal breathing-space, he rode quietly up the ascent, and then paused for a few moments before he proceeded, his mind intent on subjects foreign to the speculations of all his daily associations. Suddenly, as he mused on his latest discovery, and calculated to what principal object it might be devoted, a stream of fiery light shot rapidly athwart the dark, drear sky, and before he had space to think what the meteor might portend, a roar as of thunder shook the air, and simultaneous with it, a shrill, piercing scream, mingled with the fearful sound; then burst forth a volume of flame, and on the wind came floating a sulphurous vapor which, to him alone, revealed the nature of the explosion he had just witnessed. "Gracious God!" he exclaimed, while the cold sweat poured like rain-drops down his forehead, "the fire has caught the fulminating powder! But what meant that dreadful cry? Surely nothing of human life has suffered! The boy Hubert-but, no-he was at work at the further extremity of the building. But this is no time for vain, conjecture-let me learn the worst at once!" And with these words he urged his affrighted steed to its best pace, and rode rapidly into the city. All was consternation there: the tremendous noise had roused every inhabitant, and people were hurrying to and fro, some hastening toward the place from whence the sound had proceeded, others rushing wildly from it. It was but too evident that a dreadful catastrophe, worse even than Bacon dreaded, had happened. It was with difficulty he made his way through the crowd, and came upon the ruin which still blazed fiercely, appalling the stoutest of heart. There was a tumult of voices, but above the outeries of the affrighted monks, and of the scared multitude, rose the loud voice of the Friar, calling upon them to extinguish the flames. This appeal turned all eyes toward him, and then associating him with an evil, the cause of which they were unable to comprehend, the maledictions of the monks broke forth. "Seize the accursed magician," they shouted; "he has made a fiery compact with the demon! Already one victim is sacrificed-our turn will come next! See, here are the mangled limbs of his pupil, Hubert de Dreux! The fiend has claimed his reward, and borne away his soul. Seize on the wicked sorcerer, and take him to a dungeon!" Roger Bacon sate stupefied by the unexpected blow; he had no power, if he had possessed the will, to offer the slightest resistance to the fury of the enraged Franciscans, who, in the true spirit of ignorance, had ever hated him for his acquirements. With a deep sigh for the fate of the young man, whose imprudence he now saw had been the cause of this dreadful event, he yielded himself up to his enemies; they tore him from his palfrey, and with many a curse, and many a buffet, dragged him to the castle, and lodged him in one of its deepest dungeons. The flames from the ruined cell died out of themselves; but those which the envy and dread of Bacon's genius had kindled, were never extinguished, but with his life. In the long years of imprisonment which followed-the doom of the stake being averted only by powerful intercession with the PopeBacon had leisure to meditate on the value of all he had done to enlarge the understanding and extend the knowledge of his species. "The prelates and friars," he wrote in a letter which still remains, "have kept me starving in close prison, nor will they suffer any one to come to me, fearing lest my writings should come to any, other than the Pope and themselves." He reflected that of all living men he stood well-nigh alone in the consciousness that in the greatest of his inventions he had produced a discovery of incalculable value, but one for which on every account the time was not ripe. "I will not die," he said, "without leaving to the world the evidence that the secret was known to me whose marvelous power future ages shall acknowledge. But not yet shall it be revealed. Generations must pass away and the minds of men become better able to endure the light of science, before they can profit by my discovery. Let him who already possesses knowledge, guess the truth these words convey.” And in place of the directions by which Hubert de Dreux had been guided, he altered the sentence as follows: "Sed tamen salis petre, LURU MONE CAP UBRE et sulphuris." The learned have found that these mystical words conceal the anagram of Carbonum pulvere, the third ingredient in the composition of Gunpowder. A [From a Month at Constantinople.] GLIMPSES OF THE EAST. BY ALBERT SMITH. TURKISH BATH.-The second day I was at Constantinople I had a bath, in the proper Turkish fashion; and this was quite as novel in its way as every thing else had been. The establishment patronized was the head one in Stamboul; and we went from the street into a very large hall, entirely of marble, with a gallery round the walls, in which were couches, as well as down below. On these different visitors were reposing; some covered up and lying quite still, others smoking narghilés, and drinking coffee. Towels and cloths were drying on lines, and in the corner was a little shed, serving as a Câfé. We went up-stairs and undressed, giving our watches and money to the attendant, who tied our clothes up in a bundle. He then tucked a colored wrapper round our waists, and threw a towel over our shoulders, after which we walked down stairs, and put on some wooden clogs at the door of the next apartment. The first thing these did was to send me head over heels, to the great discomfiture of my temporary costume, and equal delight of the bathers there assembled. We remained in this room, which was of an increased temperature, idling upon other couches, until we were pronounced ready to go into the second chamber. I contrived, with great care and anxiety, to totter into it upon my clogs, and found another apartment of marble, very warm indeed, and lighted from the top by a dome of glass "bull's-eyes." In the middle of this chamber was a hot, raised octagon platform, also of marble, and in the recesses of the sides were marble vases, and tanks, with taps for hot and cold water, and channels in the floor to carry off the suds. Two savage, unearthly boys, their heads all shaved, with the exception of a tuft on the top, and in their scant costume of a towel only, looking more like wild Indians than Turks, now seized hold of me, and forcing me back upon the hot marble floor commenced a dreadful series of tortures, such as I had only | his fez-and could scarcely believe that an hour had elapsed, when the dragoman suggested our return to the bustling world without. THE SLAVE MARKET AT CONSTANTINOPLE.— No European goes to the East with a clear idea of a Slave-market. He has seen fanciful French lithographs, and attractive scenes in Eastern ballets, where the pretty girls appeared ready, on the shortest notice, and in the most bewitching costumes, to dance the Gitana, Romaika, Tarantella, Redowa, or any other characteristic pas that might be required of them. Or if not schooled into these impressions, he takes the indignant view of the subject, and thinks of nothing but chains and lashes, and finds, at last, that one is just as false as the other. read of as pertaining to the dark ages. It was of no use to resist. They clutched hold of the back of my neck, and I thought they were going to strangle me; then they pulled at my arms and legs, and I thought again they were going to put me on the rack; and lastly, when they both began to roll backward and forward on my chest, doubling my cracking elbows underneath them, I thought, finally, that my last minute was come, and that death by suffocation would finish me. They were fiends, and evidently delighted in my agony; not allowing me to look to the right or left after my companions, and throwing themselves on me again, whenever they conceived I was going to call the dragoman to my assistance. I do not know that I ever passed such a frightful five minutes, connected with bathing, nervous as are some of the feelings which that pastime gives rise to. It is very terrible to take the first summer plunge into a deep, dark river, and when you are at the bottom, and the water is roaring in your ears, to think of dead bodies and crocodiles; it is almost worse to make that frightful journey down a steep beach, in a bathing machine, with a vague incertitude as to where you will find yourself when the doors open again: but nothing can come up to what I suffered in my last extremity, in this Constantinople bath. Thoughts of Turkish cruelty and the sacks of the Bosphorus; of home, and friends, and my childhood's bowers-kept. It is true that these were grated, but the of the sadness of being murdered in a foreign bath and the probability of my Giaour body being eaten by the wild dogs, crowded rapidly on me, as these demons increased their tortures; until, collecting all my strength for one last effort, I contrived to throw them off, one to the right and the other to the left, some half dozen feet and regained my legs. The worst was now over, certainly; but the persecution still continued sufficiently exciting. They seized on me again, and led me to the tanks, where they almost flayed me with horsehair gloves, and drowned me with bowls of warm water, poured continuously on my head. I could not see, and if I again tried to cry out, they thrust a large soapy swab, made of the fibres that grow at the foot of the date palm, into my mouth, accompanying each renewed act of cruelty with a demand for baksheesh. At last, being fairly exhausted, themselves, they swathed me in a great many towels; and I was then half carried, half pushed, up stairs again, where I took my place upon my couch with feelings of great joy and thankfulness. There is now no regular slave-market at Constantinople. The fair Circassians and Georgians reside in the houses of the merchants, to whom many of them are regularly consigned by their friends, and of these it is impossible for a Frank to obtain a glimpse, for the usual privacy of the harem is granted to them. The chief dépôt of the blacks is in a large court-yard attached to the Mosque of Suleyman. In a street immediately outside the wall was a row of coffeehouses, where opium was also to be procured for smoking, which is by no means so general a practice as is imagined; and over and behind these were buildings in which the slaves were lattices through which only the Turkish women can look abroad, gave a far greater notion of imprisonment. There were a great many women and children grouped about in the court-yard, and all those who appeared to possess any degree of intelligence were chatting and laughing. Some were wrapped up in blankets and crouching about in corners; but in these, sense and feeling seemed to be at the lowest ebb. I should be very sorry to run against any proper feelings on the subject, but I do honestly believe that if any person of average propriety and right-mindedness were shown these creatures, and told that their lot was to become the property of others, and work in return for food and lodging, he would come to the conclusion that it was all they were fit for-indeed, he might think that they had gained in exchanging their wretched savage life for one of comparative civilization. I would not pretend, upon the strength of a hurried visit to a city, to offer the slightest opinion upon the native domestic and social economy; but I can say, that whenever I have I now began to think that all the horrors I seen the black slaves abroad, they have been had undergone were balanced by the delicious neatly dressed, and apparently well kept; and feeling of repose that stole over me. I felt that that, if shopping with their mistresses in the I could have stopped there forever, with the bazaars, the conversation and laughing that fragrant coffee steaming at my side, and the passed between them was like that between soothing bubble of the narghiles sounding in two companions. The truth is that the "virevery direction. I went off into a day dream-tuous indignation" side of the question holds out my last clear vision being that of a man having grander opportunities to an author for fine writhis head shaved all but a top knot, which was ing than the practical fact. But this style of long enough to twist round and round, under composition should not always be implicitly |