The conclusion of this course of Lectures we thought particularly beautiful. Mr. Knowles said, he ever felt great pleasure in lecturing to the members of the institution, but on that evening he felt peculiarly awkwardthere was an indescribable feeling pervading him, which he could not shake off. He knew himself (laying his hand ou a volume of Shakspeare), to be in the presence of a master-spirit, and he felt his own insignificance. "Yes" said he, "here is a work, to equal which, would be the greatest height of my ambition ;-but I know its excellence-I am aware how transcendantly beautiful it is-what genius is displayed in its production. I despair even of ever approaching it!" We wish we could remember the exact words, and infuse the manner of the Lecturer into this impassioned speech. LONDON MECHANICS' INSTITUTION.-Mr. Serle has delivered in the course of the month a series of lectures upon the Drama at this Institution which have been attended with great success. In his first he argued strenuously in favor of the stage as a school of morality, and contended that in all countries, but more especially in England, the most beneficial results had arisen from a well regulated drama; those who advanced the impiety of plays he referred to the Scriptures to the stories of Nathan and David, and the Prodigal Son, which he stated was in itself a perfect drama. He recited in a most impressive manner the opening of the tragedy of Hamlet, and distinctly proved the superior wisdom of our immortal bard, in leaving so much to the imagination of the audience whose expectations he had previously raised; and he remarked that although he had seen the great Talma enact the character and deliver the description (used in France instead of the appearance of the spirit), it was far from making that impression on the mind which is experienced by those who witness it on our own stage. In his second lecture he animadverted upon the true meaning of what is termed poetical justice, and here again he had recourse to Shakespeare, in nearly all of whose plays it is found to be truly administered. Upon incident he remarked the success of the drama greatly depends, he bid the audience remember that no play could be endured that had but one incident, but that it must rest its hopes of pleasing upon a succession of them. He instanced the grave scene in Hamlet in which Laertes and Hamlet meet. Laertes maddened at the mournful fate of his beloved sister, charges Hamlet with having been the cause: the quarrel here ensues, and leads to the incident that follows in the last scene. He condemned those whose presumption had led them to make any alterations in the works of Shakespeare, in no one of which, he said, had they been successful; but they had served to show plainly their own inability and the superior judgment and knowledge of stage business possessed by that great author. In the third lecture, in which Mr. S. commented upon dramatic language, he was equally successful. Othello, Macbeth, and Lear were the works to which he directed the attention of his hearers for examples of that which he considered most beautiful and expressive, On the 15th, Mr. Cowper delivered a most useful and entertaing lecture upon paper-making, which was well attended, and which appeared to give great satisfaction to the more scientific part of his auditory; but we have ever remarked, that no lecture, however well got up or delivered, on a scientific subject, appears to collect so large an audience as on a literary one. On the 17th, Mr. Serle again lectured to a theatre literally crowded. He held up to ridicule those plays in which the hero or heroine describes the agony felt, instead of showing the result of the feeling. He turned to Hastings, and also to the character of Jane Shore, in both of which, this description occurs frequently; after which, as a contrast, he read the murder scene in Macbeth, very much to the delight of the audience, which they testified by their loud applause. J. FELLOWES, printer, 36, TOTTENHAM COURT ROAD. THE New London Magazine. HAZARD HOUSES. BY THE AUTHOR OF "GAMING HOUSES OF LONDON." "WELL encountered," said L- when, after the lapse of a fortnight from the evening of our last excursion, we crossed each other's path within the healthful and agreeable range of the plantation of St. James's Park. "I am here, as you perceive," continued he, " lounging away my morning hour, inhaling the freshness and enjoying the freedom of the scene, so beautifully and beneficially contrasted with the artificial appearance, formalities, and restraints of fashionable night. Here I find pleasure and amusement in the innocent and lively gambols of nurselings and nursemaids, and watch with delight the occupations of the urchin tribe, who bring their rations of biscuit and bread and butter, wherewith to ingratiate themselves with the ducks and ducklings who prank in the cheerful stream. I sometimes moralize and contemplate the happy buoyant days of the child, when his mind, vagrant as his steps, pursues the gossamer, and flies from object to object lawless and unconfined, and reflect on the change that must come o'er the spirit of his dream-when this happy and enviable period must merge into more advanced life, and the heart's gaiety be sobered or deadened by the cares and anxieties of worldly occupations and interests. Within this limited but favoured spot of metropolitan perambulation, there is much food for the philosophical observer; for the man who speculates on character as deducible from exterior; in other words, for him who professes to read the mind's construction in the face-for here recreate alike the grave and gay, the mirthful and melancholy, the sanguine in hope, and the enthusiastic in misery. Here rove the idle and industrious-the one like Solomon's fool, occupied only by the weighty affair of doing nothing; the other maturing in his mind some useful principle or scheme of enterprize and profit; or, with equal laudability, studiously devoting himself to some subject whereon to edify and enlighten NO. IV.-VOL. I. M his fellow-man. This spot, too, is the favoured resort of the fair. Here promenade nymphs of nature's own sweet and cunning workmanship, of languishing lasses, and maids of more robust and healthful mien. Here may be seen, reclining on some umbrageous spot, the sentimental dame, like Niobe, all tears, weeping over Werter's sorrows, or the more youthful novel-devouring lass, drinking deep from the fountain of flattery, which the author has so felicitously set up, and which she fails not, in her heart's own fabulous application, to receive as her peculiar meed bestowed by the one dear object of her affections. Here marches the military Exquisite from the Horse Guards, but recently commissioned, and ill at ease in the weight of finery that burthens him, bearing his blushing honours thick upon him, and strutting along with all the pomp and pride of gold epaulettes and Jack boots, casting his glances from under a mountain of cap at every fair one he meets, and setting himself down in his own happy estimation as irresistible. Youths of light hearts and maids of modest mien, stray in the sweet and social intercourse of love, preferring to interchange their amorous confessions by the light of day's glorious orb, rather than to whisper them on the murmuring gales of eve, under the influence of the changeable and mischief-loving moon, intuitively impressed with Lord Byron's opinion "The devil's in the moon for mischief,' &c. &c. Here perambulate also fools, who make fashions, and wise men who follow them. Knaves who live by seeming what they are not, and meritorious men whose modesty and diffidence would conceal what they really are. The old sexagenarian libertine is frequently and daily observable slowly and cautiously creeping his way among the bright-eyed nursemaids, ingeniously noticing the infants of their charge, that he may more effectually open a way to whisper his adulations into the ears of the more immediate object of his attentions. Here stroll pampered pimps and painted prudes; and last, not least, in deep contemplative musings, numerous members of that peripatetic school of philosophy, termed the Ways and Means Club, men whose outward garb shews at once their contempt for all fashionable exterior, and who are seeking the that within which passeth show,' and solving in their own minds the great and important problem of— "Where shall I dine?" " 66 Truly," said I," you have given a most entertaining description of this metropolitan retreat, and one that could emanate only from a contemplative mind like your own; but now that we are on the subject of character, let me remind you of your promise to accompany me to a hazard hell.” "I have not forgotten," said he," and am prepared to redeem the promise whenever you shall have a leisure evening from more rational and agreeable engagements. How stand your engagements for Saturday ?" "Free as liberty's self," replied I," and wholly at your appointment, anxious to take lesson the second in the interesting course of worldly instruction which you have so specially and elaborately made out for me." "Your desire shall be gratified," said he, "and now for our plans. Dine with me at six; after which we will go to the opera, and then, a-là-Tom and Jerry, we will visit the midnight haunts of hell and hazard." Saturday arrived, and, punctual to the hour of engagement, I joined L- at six. We discussed the merits of his cook, as displayed in the management of some boiled salmon and lamb chops, and paid a well merited tribute to the respectability of his wine merchant, by giving most indubitable proof of our approval of the exquisite flavour of his Lafitte. Having thus manfully acquitted ourselves of the most agreeable duties we moved off in the direction of the opera, there to revel in all the luxury and enchantment of impassioned feeling and sweet sounds. We had chosen a brilliant evening, that of the day of the drawing room in celebration of the King's birthday. The house was in a blaze of beauty and brilliants; the latter in many instances eclipsed by the more transcendent lustre of the eyes they would have rivalled; the tout ensemble was of a nature to throw a novice wild with wonder and delight, and to leave him in doubt as to the reality of his vision. Such was the effect on myself. My senses were steeped in astonishment, and I could scarcely credit that the scene was other than that of enchantment, so far did it surpass every thing that had yet fallen within the scope of my most fairylike conceptions. The syren Grisi warbled her soul and sentiment around, and Rubini and others renewed in the feelings of the auditors all the delightful and pleasurable sensations which their highly gifted and no less highly cultivated talent must ever inspire. The ballet followed, and here was displayed the symmetry and elasticity of the "human form divine," in all its elegant proportion and variety. The young were in a state of rapturous excitement, while the aged, straining their visions through the medium of glasses, canvassed in more sedative, but not less sensual terms, the merits and capacities of each fair candidate for favour. Taglioni and Duvernay discoursed so eloquently in what Moore so felicitously terms" the extatic language of the feet," that the force of delight and admiration could no further go. The audience, which albeit is not usually, as I understand, given to the noisy expression of applause, but limited to the undertone of approbation, which in fashionable life is considered to be more refined and recherché, were actually clamorous in their applause. It was indeed the very perfection of the art, where action and pace were modified and combined even to the nicest extreme of the ideal; but the vision was at an end, the curtain fell, and it was some time before the move of departure was made, so powerful had been the effect of the exhibition. At length, however, we rose to depart, and making our way out through one of the greatest crowds I ever witnessed, all moving on with an order and regularity that astonished me, we reached the Haymarket colonade; "and now," said my friend," to relieve your senses from the spell which appears to bind them, we will pass from the celestial to the infernal; and as we are in the immediate neighbourhood of one of the most low-lived hells that disgrace the metropolis, the contrast will be complete. We are in the very nick of time, for 'Tis now the witching hour of time, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes forth, The demons of the gambling houses (without respect for the Sabbath, and equally regardless of the whole bench of bishops, magistrates, and all constituted authorities) open wide their infernal doors about the hour of twelve, and continue their work of plunder as long as they find fools to enter them. The house to which I am about to introduce you," said my friend," is one of the lowest grade in the scale, for it restricts not its accommodation to any particular class of persons, as many others profess to do, no: All who will come, all are welcome; If they're last, let imps from hell come. The house in question is kept by a set of Jews, who set all distinction at naught, and to whom the recommendation of a full purse is the highest species of qualification. In this den congregate for one grand purpose of gain and plunder, all description of persons, peers and pugilists, baronets and barbers, lawyers and legs, shopmen and sheriffs' officers, cooks, clerks, couriers, valets, with bullies and blackguards, of every description, all huddled together in one common disgraceful pursuit. But now for ocular demonstration." By this time we had reached Leicester-Square, and enter ing the passage of a house at the corner of a street at the northwest corner, we summoned the porter by the usual application of the knocker. Without hesitation, and free from all the scrutiny and examination which characterized our visit to the hell of St. James's, we were admitted, and made our way up stairs to the scene of action. The room, which was spacious, was literally crammed, with as motley a group as ever eye beheld. In the centre of one portion of the room was a large table, of similar form and appearance to a rouge et noir table, but differently marked for the purposes of the game at this table. Opposed to each other were seated two individuals, with long wooden rakes in their hands, and before them a profusion of counters of different character and colour. On the table immediately in front of the persons alluded to were pieces of ivory, in the form of cards, bearing on them certain numbers, from 5 to 10, which I was informed were for the purpose of marking from time to time what is termed the main and chance, or the number which the factor or player has to throw against the number which he originally calls |