deafening:  but presently I am able to analyse the sounds that have caused the commotion; and I confess it is with a beating heart, and a sort of choking sensation in the throat, I hear every lip repeat—­’The Queen of England!’ and every band in the Park take up from the music in the tent our own national strain, till the whole atmosphere vibrates with God save the Queen! The effect was magical, and I felt gratified beyond measure—­not alone at the compliment to our country, but as evidence that the Anglo-Saxons are still one great community, and that the proceedings of that day would rivet between the two countries the bond of common blood.  The day closed as happily as it had begun, and the streets were crowded up to a late hour.  I was in all the thickest of the press, and I know that there was not a single accident, nor did I see or hear of any instance of drunkenness or disorder.  All was harmony and good-humour.

I would mention, as a strong proof of the growing interest felt for the old country here, in New England especially, that almost every family is desirous of being known to be connected with it.  They have all English names; and a numerous society have employed a gentleman of skill in such matters for the last ten years in England in tracing out the English branches of the different families, in the State, so as to have the genealogy complete.  This has become a passion; and I have found every person I met who could trace his descent from the mother-country proud of it.  I fell in, the other day, with a highly intelligent American, who told me with quite a feeling of pride, that his grandfather and grandmother were English, and his wife’s father a Scot.

THINGS TALKED OF IN LONDON.

January 1852.

Notwithstanding our busy and acquisitive propensities, we of the metropolis have found time to wish one another a happy new-year, and to send friendly greetings to our country cousins also.  We don’t like to take the step from one year into another without a coup d’amitie.  Besides all which, we are in the habit of considering ourselves at the present season more than ever entitled to partake of the recreations offered us, whether theatrical, musical, pictorial, saltatorial, philosophical, or scientific.  And so, while simple-minded people are looking into the new almanacs to test the accuracy of the predictions, I must try to fill a page or two with such matters of talk as will bear reproduction in print.

First of all, among the discussions and communications at the Astronomical Society, it is stated that the term ‘meteoric astronomy’ is one which we shall shortly be able to use with almost absolute certainty, as M. Petit of Toulouse has succeeded in determining the orbits of meteors relatively to the sun as well as to the earth.  His conclusions are considered valuable, especially with respect to the meteor of August 19, 1847, which, it appears,