296. _Interior of a Gaming-house_. H. Pidding. We take this to represent one of the _salons_ of Frescati's, or other Parisian gaming-house, where females are admitted to participate in the game, and witness the madness and folly of the stronger sex. The party are chiefly about a _rouge et noir_ table, and are in the highest stage of recklessness. One of them, a female, has flung herself from the lure across a chair, apparently in the last stage of wretchedness and despair. The excitement of the players is powerfully wrought up and contrasted with the _sang froid_ of the _croupier_, who seems to treat all the world as a ball. Other persons are seeking fresh excitement at the hands of a liveried waiter. But we must leave the rest, which it would take a column or two to describe, especially as to our mind, a gaming-house furnishes an epitome of all the bad passions that rankle in the human breast. 301. _The Reform Question_. Thomas Clater. A pleasanter scene than the preceding picture. A village blacksmith is reading the newspaper, by a candle held by a boy, to a listening neighbour. The puzzling of the reader, the vacant stare of the candle-holder, and the intent expression of the absorbed listener, are excellent. Perhaps the light of the candle is objectionable. 311. _Love in the Dairy_. H.H. Hobday. A ticklish village amour: a young fellow importuning a buxom dairy-maid, and apparently on the verge of conquest; in the distant door-way stands a mar-loving, wrinkled old woman, whose crabbed face ought not to be trusted in a dairy. 466. _The Lord Chancellor_, seated in a chair, in his official robes, by J. Lonsdale. The likeness is excellent, as are the robes, wig, ruffles, &c. but the great seal and mace are even dingier than the orignals. We could have spared the books thrown on the floor, though the paper register in one of them almost _comes out_. We reserve a few pictures for another visit. The Portraits, as might be expected, are numerous. The King's supporters are two ex-sheriffs: by the way, how many good turns does _office_ yield to art; there is nothing like a portrait to perpetuate your brief authority. Works of imagination are scarce, especially as empainting the ideas of poets and passion-writers has become fashionable. * * * * * NOTES OF A READER. THE VEGETABLE WORLD. We pencil a few passages, at random, from Part 14 of _Knowledge for the People_--(Botany, concluded.) _Why does snow, when in contact with leaves and stems, melt more speedily than when lodged upon dead substances?_