SNAIL COUGH-MIXTURE.--The following glimpse of an old lady's pharmacopœia in the middle of last century is got from a letter of Mrs. Delany's written in January, 1758:--"Does Mary cough in the night? Two or three snails boiled in her barley-water or tea-water, or whatever she drinks, might be of great service to her; taken in time they have done wonderful cures. She must know nothing of it. They give no manner of taste. It would be best nobody should know it but yourself, and I should imagine six or eight boiled in a quart of water and strained off and put in a bottle would be a good way, adding a spoonful or two of that to every liquid she takes. They must be fresh done every two or three days, otherwise they grow too thick." THE TRUTH ABOUT WIVES. Some wicked wits have libelled all the fair. With matchless impudence they call a wife The dear-bought curse and lawful plague of life; A bosom serpent, a domestic evil. * * * * * Let not the wise these slanderous words regard, But curse the bones of every lying bard; All other goods by fortune's hand are given-- A wife is the peculiar gift of heaven. A wife! Oh, gentle deities, can he That has a wife e'er feel adversity? Would men but follow what the sex advise, All things would prosper, all the world grow wise. --_Pope._ A NOVELIST'S TALE.--Why is a novelist an unnatural phenomenon? Because his tale comes out of his head. SUNSHINE AT HOME.--No trait of character is more valuable in a woman than a sweet temper. Home can never be made happy without it. It is like the flowers that spring up in our pathway, reviving and cheering us. Let a man go home at night, wearied and worn by the toils of the day, and how soothing is a word dictated by a good disposition! It is sunshine falling on his heart. He is happy, and the cares of life are forgotten. "WHAT DOES YF SPELL?" "Bad spelling," says Benjamin Franklin in one of his letters, "is generally the best, as conforming to the sound of the letters and of the words. To give you an instance: a gentleman received a letter in which were these words, 'Not finding Brown at hom, I delivered your meseg to his yf.' The gentleman, finding it bad spelling, and therefore not very intelligible, called his lady to help him to read it. Between them they picked out the meaning of all but the yf, which they could not understand. The lady proposed to called her chambermaid, 'because Betty,' says she, 'has the best knack at reading bad spelling of anyone I know!' Betty came and was surprised that neither sir nor madame could tell what yf was. "'Why,' says she, 'y--f spells wife; what else can it spell?' "And, indeed, it is a much better, as well as shorter, method of spelling wife than doubleyou-i-ef-e, which in reality spells double-uifey."