A Dutch painter, in a picture of the Wise Men worshiping the Holy Child, has drawn one of them in a large white surplice, and in boots and spurs, and he is in the act of presenting to the child a model of a Dutch man-of-war. In a Dutch picture of Abraham offering up his son, instead of the patriarch's "stretching forth his hand and taking the knife," as the Scriptures inform us, he is represented as using a more effectual and modern instrument; he is holding to Isaac's head a blunderbuss. A French artist has drawn, with true French taste, the Lord's Supper, with the table ornamented with tumblers filled with cigar-lighters; and, as if to crown the list of these absurd and ludicrous anachronisms, the Garden of Eden has been drawn with Adam and Eve in all their primeval simplicity and virtue, while near them, in full costume, is seen a hunter with a gun, shooting ducks. Another famous mixture of periods occurs in a picture of the Crucifixion, by Fra Angelico. In the foreground are a Dominican monk, a bishop with a crozier, a mitered abbot, and a man holding up a crucifix. A PIN SCRATCH LED TO NELSON'S VICTORY. DISCOVERY OF THE FRENCH FLEET. The Noting of the Distress of a French Maid by Sir John Acton Had a Strange Result. The good points of pins have been generally appreciated, but never did a pin point to a greater result than the one that made possible Nelson's great victory of the Nile on August 1 and 2, 1798. It was at this fight that Nelson, with his usual intrepidity, forced a passage with half of his fleet of fifteen vessels between a small island, near Aboukir in Egypt, and the French line of battle, while the other half attacked the enemy in front, completely defeating the French fleet and capturing or sinking thirteen of its seventeen ships. The part that the pin played in the story came about in this way: Sir John Acton, then commander-in-chief of the land and sea forces of Naples, happened to be in his wife's dressing-room at the moment she was preparing for dinner. Lady Acton's French maid was also in the room, and was so startled at receiving a letter from her brother, a sailor in the French navy, whom she had believed to be dead, that she ran a pin into her mistress's flesh. Apologizing for her carelessness, the maid stated the cause of her surprise. With carefully suppressed eagerness Sir John Acton offered to read the letter while the maid continued her duties. The maid gladly consented. Having read the letter, the commander-in-chief left the house in search of Lord Nelson, who had in vain been seeking the French fleet. He found him and imparted to him the contents of the letter. It gave all the information the admiral had so long endeavored to obtain. Setting sail immediately, Nelson came up with the French, and the victory of the Nile was the result.