Twenty years later, as we have already seen, Merlin, the savage Minister of Justice who had refused pity to these unfortunate persons, was himself, by a similar shipwreck under similar circumstances, delivered over to the mercy of their friends. He had sententiously declared, "Wherever I find an enemy I kill him!" King William of Holland silenced one of his ministers who was urging him to take revenge on Merlin by very different words: "A hurricane has thrown him back upon our coast: shall I be more pitiless than winds and storms?" Once again during the brief remainder of his days was Merlin to learn the lesson "_noblesse oblige_" by experiencing a generosity he had never shown. In 1820 his son, General Eugène Merlin, who had served with distinction under the Empire, but had made his submission to the government of the Restoration, was arrested on a charge of being implicated in a military conspiracy. The matter came before the Court of Peers. The duke de Choiseul, high in the favor of his king, sat as one of the judges. He believed the young man innocent, and took his defence upon himself, pleading his cause so warmly that General Eugène Merlin was acquitted. Stéphanie de Choiseul married when she grew up, and became duchesse de Marmier. E.W.L. REALISTIC ART. Seldom now-a-days does an "old master" appear in the catalogues of art-sales or private galleries, the genuine article having grown too scarce and the fictitious too abundant. What the buyer looks for is a picture younger than himself, as full of the fashion of his own day as his coat or his hat. The painter must have some celebrity, and that must have at least six or eight years to grow in. Allowing for that necessary age, the newer the artist the better his work. The period has every confidence in itself, and does not care to look back for guidance and instruction in the principles of beauty and taste.