Mrs. H., the doctor's mother, not unfrequently took tea and played chess of an evening with Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was a funny old gentleman. He used to amuse himself by giving ether to the children of the neighborhood and letting them out under its influence to laugh at their fellow-playmates. SOME PURITANIC EPITAPHS. The most ingenious of the Puritan poets was the Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, whose "Day of Doom" is the most remarkable curiosity in American literature. "He was as skilled," says one of his biographers, "in physic and surgery as in diviner things;" and when he could neither preach nor prescribe for the physical sufferings of his neighbors,-- "In costly verse, and most laborious rhymes, He dished up truths right worthy our regard." He was buried in Malden, near Boston, and his epitaph was written by Mather. THE EXCELLENT MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH. _Remembered by some good tokens._ "His pen did once _meat from the eater fetch_; And now he's gone beyond the _eater's_ reach. His body, once so _thin_, was next to _none_; From hence he's to _unbodied spirits_ flown. Once his rare skill did all _diseases_ heal; And he does nothing now uneasy feel. He to his Paradise is joyful come, And waits with joy to see his _Day of Doom_." The last epitaph for which we have now space is from the monument of Dr. Clark, a grandson of the celebrated Dr. John Clark, who came to New England in 1630. "He who among physicians shone so late, And by his wise prescriptions conquered Fate, Now lies extended in the silent grave; Nor him alive would his vast merit save. But still his fame shall last, his virtues live, And all sepulchral monuments survive: Still flourish shall his name: nor shall this stone Long as his piety and love be known." And "Such graves as his are pilgrim shrines, Shrines to no code or creed confined-- _The Delphian vales, the Palestines, The Meccas of the mind_." THE ONE-HOSS SHAY. Mr. Mundella, of the British Parliament, recently said,-- "American authors are now among the best writers in the English language. Among the poets were Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, Bryant, and Lowell--five men whom no other country in the same generation could surpass, if, indeed, they could match. Never were purer or nobler men than they." He had the honor of knowing some of the greatest literary men in England, and could say that the American authors could compare with them in every way. O. W. Holmes was the most brilliant conversationalist it was ever his good fortune to meet. As a poet, "his style is brilliant, sparkling, and terse," says Hillard. I can only find space for the following from the pen of Dr. Holmes:--