TALBOT6414

London Sat^y May 3

My dear Constance

Last night I went to the Royal Institution, to hear a lecture by the Astronomer Royal on the total eclipse of the sun which is to happen next July in the Eastern parts of Europe – He advised everybody in the room to go and see it, tho’ he did not say that he was going himself. Königsberg or Warsaw would be he said good places to see it. Today I went to the flower show at the gardens of the Hort^l Society – The day was unfavorable but the flowers were very beautiful, on the whole the Azaleas of the Indica kind were the most showy things – they were large bushes of many various colours – The rain came down for an hour as heavy as it could pour – The company kept peeping impatiently out of the tent, altho’ they ought not to have been dissatisfied, being imprisoned among beautiful Orchises. In my way back I sheltered for an hour in the crystal palace. Many thousand people there but no crowd. The great diamond Koh-i-noor is safely enshrined under a glass bell-cover and that enclosed in a strong and large gilt cage thro’which the most expert of the swell mob will be unable to insinuate their fingers. A little girl held up in her papa’s arms to look at it, about 3 years old, amused me by saying Papa! might I have it, if I pay money for it?

Your aff^te
Henry

Crowds are looking at M^r De la Rue’s curious machine for making envelopes for letters – a boy keeps feeding it with pieces of paper of a diamond or lozenge shape; several metallic hands or fingers seize the paper & twist it into an envelope putting on the gum and all, at the rate of one per second. He has 14 such machines at work all day in Bunhill Row, for the government.