wholly confined to myself. She afterwards endeavoured to throw herself from a window, but was prevented. When it was ascertained who the man was below, it occasioned considerable merriment, he being an upholsterer named Grecs, to whom she had sent a few days before, but who was not then at home. In a comedy called Madam Jobin, or the Fortune Teller, there is a scene representing the above fact; and in the play a good idea is given of the manner in which Voisin duped people with her diabolical arts.

It has been my lot to be acquainted with some who were at this woman's house, and as she pretended to know many hidden things, several persons visited her without any criminal intention-at least as far as that can be done by one who has recourse to either magical arts or what is believed to be so. When any one consulted Voisin upon these hidden matters, and wished to explain something respecting them, she would say, "Be silent, I am not anxious to know your affairs; it is to the spirit which you must relate them; for the spirit is jealous, and will not suffer anybody to know his secrets. It is my duty to request you to obey him." After this, she would produce writingpaper, which she represented as being charmed, upon which she wrote the names, titles, and qualities of the spirit; and then she commenced a letter, which the person seeking her aid had to finish, by asking questions respecting what was wanted. During this time she mentioned a variety of reasons for this process. When all the ques

tions were committed to writing, Voisin brought a vessel full of burning charcoal in one hand, and a piece of bees'wax in the other; she then directed the wax to be enclosed and folded up in the letter, and said they would both be destroyed by the fire, for the spirit already knew what had been written, and would give his reply in three days. When this was over she took the paper from the person and threw it-or rather one like it, into the fire, where it was immediately consumed. She always contrived to have a piece of wax at hand of the same size, folded in a similar piece of paper to the one written upon, and the only difficulty was, to substitute, without being perceived, the fictitious packet, and throw the other into the fire. The questions then written to the spirit became known to her, and during the three days given

for the answers she gathered all the particulars of the temper and affairs of the individual she could. The intrigues she had formed often made her replywhich was done, in the spirit's name, correct. By these tricks she obtained the name of a sorceress from the simple, but skilful people alwas considered her an imposter. The late Marquis de Luxembourg put to terrible fear the devil-or rather the person whom she employed to represent him, when in her presence, notwithstanding her assumed powers; and if things of this nature were always thoroughly examined, their falsehood would certainly be ascertained. It is very extraordinary to me, why any one should be so ambitious to acquire reputation of so disgraceful a nature. Since the time of Madame de Brainvillier, France has not contained so skilful a woman in administering poison as Voisin. She left several scholars in Paris, but through the vigilance of our Sovereign, they were soon exterminated,-a thing deserving the praises of his people. The day that Voisin was condemned, that famous painter, M. le Brun, obtained permission to take her likeness, a short time before she was conducted to the scaffold, for the purpose of observing the impressions which the certainty of immediate death produces in a guilty mind. This picture is the one placed in the Gallery of the Louvre, called "The Horrors of Death," and is considered the finest of all M. le Brun's portraits.

THE

DEFORMED TRANSFORMED,*

A DRAMA;

BY LORD BYRON.

The productions of this extraordinary man must ever command some attention, not only from his own countrymen, but from the whole of the known world, much as they may regret the mis-direction of, undoubtedly, the powers of the first poetical genius of the age; and much, also, as all good men must deplore the sacrifice which Lord Byron has made, when, to the honour of his "Native Land" he might have raised himself as much above all contemporary poets, as the splendour of the sun surpasses the beams of the modest night-lamp. His eccentricities,

Hunt. London. 1824.

his stubborn devotion to the monstrous, which he has picked up amongst the German plodders, has, alas! so besotted him, that we fear he is now incapable of bending his lawless imagination to the legitimate and only just rules for dramatic composition, which has been so ably laid down both by ancient and modern writers. The present work, like many others of his Lordship, will afford the reader no very lasting pleasure-indeed, it resembles a table spread with dainties, all the dishes of which are tainted with some disagreeable ingredient, save two or three; but having partaken of the first, you are unable to enjoy the latter.

The Devil and Dr. Faustus are here revived by his Lordship, under the more agreeable appellations of Julius Cæsar and Count Arnold; and the

drama commences with a scene between the latter, who seems to be a welldisposed young man, though a deformed person, and his mother. He is thrust, nolens volens, by his mamma, out of doors, to gather wood; and the young gentleman taking it in dudgeon, proceeds to destroy himself after the manner of Brutus; but is dissuaded from so much impiety by no less a personage than the Devil!!!-in the likeness of a tall man, who rises, like an African water-god, out of a fountain; and to whom, after a few compliments, Arnold sells his soul to be privileged to appear in the beautiful form of Achilles. Whilst his black majesty mingles some of Arnold's blood with the water of the fountain, he repeats the following incantation:

With all our anger against this perversely-spirited man, how the heart melts in kindness and pity towards him, when we find him still so alive to every thing that is beautiful, sweet, and pathetic! We have often seen the group, to which he alludes in the above passage, displayed with the highest powers of the pencil on canvass; but in the one word "trembled," he adds a feature to the picture worth all the rest, and awakens a feeling in our bosoms which no pencil but that of a poet could excite, of a poet great and glorious as himself.

Beautiful shadow

Of Thetis's boy! Who sleeps in the meadow Whose grass grows o'er Troy : From the red earth, like Adam, Thy likeness I shape, As the Being who made him, Whose actions I ape. Thou clay, be all glowing,

Till the rose in his cheek Be as fair as, when blowing, It wears its first streak! Ye violets! I scatter,

Now turn into eyes! And thou, sunshiny water,

Of blood take the guise! Let these hyacinth boughs

Be his long flowing hair, And wave o'er his brows,

As thou wavest in air!
Let his heart be this marble

I tear from the rock!
But his voice as the warble
Of birds on yon oak!
Let his flesh be the purest
Of mould, in which grew
The lily-root surest,

And drank the best dew!
Let his limbs be the lightest

Which clay can compound!
And his aspect the brightest
On earth to be found!
Elements, near me,

Be mingled and stirred,
Know me, and hear me,
And leap to my word!

Sunbeams, awaken

This earth's animation! "Tis done! He hath taken

His stand in Creation! (ARNOLD falls senseless; his soul passes into the shape of Achilles, which rises from the ground; while the Phantom has disappeared, part by part, as the figure was formed from the earth. (p. 28.)

Arnold's deserted body lies on the bout at incantation, the soul of the ground, all a-mort, but after another Stranger (or an Ignis-fatuus, we are in doubt which) takes up its habitation locomotion: then enter "four coalthere with Pythagorean dexterity of black horses," led by a couple of goblin-pages whom Arnold nicknames: I'll call him Who bears the golden horn, and wears such bright

"Arnold.

And blooming aspect, Huon; for he looks

Like to the lovely boy lost in the forest And never found till now. And for the other

And darker, and more thoughtful, who smiles not,

But looks as serious though serene as Night,

He shall be Memnon, from the Ethiop king Whose statue turns a harper once a day. And you?" (P. 37.)

And the holy quartett being thus appointed with cavalry and travelling names (Arnold taking that of Count Arnold, and the Devil that of Cæsar) set off for the Eternal City, at that time besieged by Charles of Bourbon, the traitor Constable of France. Beëlzebub, by the way, turns songster as well as Cæsar, trolling a merry roundelay as they go off:

"Cæsar sings. To horse! to horse!

my coal-black steed

Paws the ground and snuffs the air! There's not a foal of Arab's breed

More knows whom he must bear !
On the hill he will not tire,
Swifter as it waxes higher;
In the marsh he will not slacken,
On the plain be overtaken;
In the wave he will not sink,

Nor pause at the brook's side to drink;
In the race he will not pant,
In the combat he'll not faint;
On the stones he will not stumble,
Time nor toil shall make him humble;
In the stall he will not stiffen,
But be winged as a Griffin,