Yet, though 'tis hard that the young and the beautiful, From loving hearts should be torn thus away, Still will we try to be patient and dutiful, Knowing that after the night comes the day. * * * * * AERONAUTICS. Recent British papers and correspondents bring very pleasing accounts of a balloon ascension, which took place in London on the 9th of October. This adventure is the more interesting to us, from the fact that the well-known and experienced aeronauts, Messrs. Coxwell and Glaisher, were accompanied in their celestial excursion by several private individuals of distinction, and among the rest by the Hon. Robert J. Walker, of this country, whose able contributions have done so much to enhance the value of THE CONTINENTAL. Some years ago, this gentleman had the scientific curiosity to descend to the bottom of the sea, in a new diving apparatus, just then invented; and recently he has been driven through a tunnel on a railway, by the pneumatic process, which in certain locations and conditions, will probably hereafter be substituted for the ordinary power of the locomotive engine. He seems to be not only ready to welcome all valuable improvements in science and mechanics, but is ready himself to take the risks of dangerous exploration in the pursuit of knowledge and for the promotion of progress. But of all such adventures, that into the regions of the atmosphere is by far the most interesting. Living immersed in this great ocean of air and moisture which surrounds the earth, and is the theatre of all the grand, beautiful, benignant, and often terrific phenomena of meteorology, it is no more than a very natural curiosity which induces us to seek by aerial exploration to understand its physical peculiarities, and to make use of the vast resources which it will doubtless soon afford to the genius and enterprise of the human race.