. 156 
might, have it prevented, by a. philan- 
thropiec foresight, fall as a punishment 
upon them for their selfishness and 
cupidity after the mamihon of unrighte< 
ousness. ‘ 
HONOURS FOR GENTLEMEN. 
- When I was in Kentucky, in the year 
7794, an Irishman of the name of 
M‘Coy, who had formerly been a shoe- 
black, but had become wealthy, hap- 
ened to say, that there ought to be a 
distinction between gentlemen and me- 
chanics. The populace were not hack- 
ward in improving the hint, by parading 
him in effigy, with all the paraphernalia 
of his office; and concluded the, ceres 
' nony by the purifying honours of a bon- 
re. 
THE MAID OF BALDOCK. 
_ This celebrated, rustic beauty was 
yamed Mar y ‘Cortiwall, and was’ married 
about nine or ten years to Henry Leo- 
nard, a carpenter, of Baldock. She has 
been dead between thirty and _ forty 
years, and lies buried in Baldock church- 
yard, where the writer has seen her 
gravestone. She was of the middle 
size, and ,a fair, good-looking, woman. 
She had one daughter, pratense to Joseph 
Green, a cooper, of Harlow-bush, in 
¥ssex. She died of ‘a quinsy, from her 
inability to swallow, The song was pos 
pular in her own days, and she frequent- 
ty avoided market-places and fairs, where 
ut was constantly sung by ballad-singers. 
She used to be engayed to work at plain- 
work in the family of Mr. Pym, at 
Proceedings of Letrpnet Societies. 
[Match ty 
Rodwell, and lived by her industry. “Her 
father gave her but. 1001. or 1501. when 
she married, so that she was indebted to 
ber merit fon her celebrity... >. 
' The following is the song once” 80 
popular: 
Who has e’er been at Baldock must needs 
know the mill 
At the sign of the Horse, at the foot of the 
hill, 
Where the grave and the Bays the clown and 
‘the beau, 
Without all disthaction promiscuously go 
The man of the mil] had a daughter so fair, 
With so pleasing a shape, and so winning an 
air, 
That once on the hay-field’s green ‘bank as I 
stood, 
J thought she was Venus just spats frota 
the flood. 
But looking again, I perceiv’d my saan 
For Venus, though fair, has the look of a 
rake ; 
While nothing but virtue and modesty fill 
The more beautiful looks of the lass of the 
mill. * 
Prometheus stole fire, as the poets do-say, 
To ¢nliven the mass he had modell’d of clay; 
Had Mary been with him, the beam of het 
he ae 
Had sav’d him the trouble of robbing the skys 
Since first I beheld this dear lass of the mill, 
I can never be quiet, do whate’er I will ; 
All day and all night I sigh and think still 
T shall dic if I haye not the lass of the mill, 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES, | 
i ee 
ROYAL INSTITUTION. 
O circumstance is of mote frequent 
N° occurrence in the history of sci- 
icé, ur more to be regretted, than the 
powerful influence of great names in re- 
tarding the progress of knowlerige. The 
oung ‘student of nature, in the course of 
fei inquiries and experiments, frequently 
meets with fucts at variance ‘with re- 
ceived systems, and suspects the evid 
dence of his senses, or the correctness 
of his observations, when they lead to 
conclusions that oppose the principles on 
which these systems are founded. The 
fear of ridicule frequently prevents bim 
from pursuing bis inquiries; and ages 
perhaps pass away before some one more 
{gurageous traces the same path, and 
ventures to attack the errors whieh have 
been consecrated by time. 
When the philogistic system of che- 
mistry ‘was overthrown by that of La- 
voisier, the ‘chemists of “Frarice ‘were 
joined by the philosophers of every part 
of Europe, and fortified by a new no- 
menclature, their theory seemeéd to bid 
defiance to ull the attempts which were 
made to oppose its authority. Forta- 
nately for the cause of science, a young 
philosopher, Mr. Davy, appeared about 
the same period, who, by ‘steadily 
pursuing the hints which the discoveries 
of Bennet and Volta had offered, ap- 
pears to have arrived at a station "from 
whence the arrangements of matter, and 
the operations of cheinical ageney, pre= 
sent 
