7 MARCH 1846, Page 16

THE GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON.

Oun knowledge of the existence of this important body is derived from an intimation in a Shrewsbury journal, that the members "propose an early visitation of the county of Salop." A " visit- ation" indeed!—In the sense in which that term is employed by Coroners' inquests. The announcement must have fluttered the hearts of the whole squirearchy "round the Wrekin." All who have summered or wintered in "country quarters" know the tendency of genealogies to grow backwards. A wealthy grocer purchases an estate and settles down upon it : his grown-up sons and daughters are civilly received by the surrounding gentry ; their children are the equal playmates of the aristocratic nur- series ; in the course of two or at the most three generations, the grocer's family is incorporated into the body of the county gentry by a silent imperceptible process analogous to the assimilation of food by the human body. Strangers and slight acquaintances,. on the strength of a name, attribute relationships to the new family, which it does not deny and comes at last to believe. Many a re- spectable family-tree grows after this inverted fashion: genealogies are formed as the Chinese have constructed their historical cycles, by calculating backwards. The number of these ex-post-facto genealogies in a " shop-keeping " nation is enormous. Their exist- ence is often suspected, but from common politeness rarely if ever spoken about. And this agreeable state of half self-delusion the Genealogical Society of London threaten to terminate by their in- vasion of the county of Salop!