In the panel of _War_, the scene represented is that of a chieftain of some primitive tribe returning home with his clansmen across a desolate tract of open country from a successful battle. He is crowned with a wreath of laurel, and sits proudly astride a magnificent white horse. A second horseman rides beside him, and another a little behind. Three men carry a roughly constructed bier on which they are bringing home the dead body of a warrior for burial in his native soil. In the right-hand corner a woman kneels to care for a wounded man who has just sunk exhausted to the ground. Behind, a trumpeter sounds his horn, exulting in this dearly bought victory. To the left two foot-soldiers carry shields emblazoned with devices of primitive heraldry. One of them holds in a leash two straining bloodhounds, eager for their kennels, and leading the way toward home. Mr. Melchers’s other painting, _Peace_, represents an early religious procession. The inhabitants of some little village, perhaps in prehistoric Greece, have come to the border of a grove bearing the image of their tutelar goddess, a small seated figure set on a little platform covered with an embroidered cloth. The procession has halted, and the priest is reading from a paper which he holds in his hand, containing, very likely, a blessing in the name of the goddess upon the fields and orchards of the villagers. Various objects, one of them the model of a ship, are carried in the procession to be offered up as memorials in the temple of the goddess, and in the rear a boy leads to the sacrifice a bull wreathed with garlands. The following names--forming a list of the world’s most famous generals and admirals--are inscribed in tablets above the doors and windows of the gallery: Cyrus, Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Charles Martel, William the Conqueror, Frederick the Great, Charlemagne, Eugene, Marlborough, Napoleon, Wellington, Nelson, Washington, Jackson, Scott, Grant, Farragut, Sherman, and Sheridan. [Illustration: WAR.--BY GARI MELCHERS.] THE RECTANGLE: FIRST FLOOR CORRIDORS.