"There can be no impropriety in stating now that the lady in question was the Honorable Lady Milbanke, wife of Sir Ralph Milbanke, Bart., (afterward Noel,) and mother of the present Dowager Lady Byron, wife and widow of the great poet. A very interesting analogous statement relating to the same person will be found in the _Quarterly Review_ for March, 1820, No. XLIV, volume 22. "Lately, in France, the Count de Tristan has published a work on the subject, and a most interesting volume, containing two memoirs, has been written by M. Thouvenel, a physician of reputation in France, who was commissioned in the year 1781, by the king, to analyze and report upon the mineral and medicinal waters of the kingdom. The author undertakes a patient and laborious investigation, in the spirit of a philosopher, and regards his inquiries as leading to a new thread in the tangled skein of physics, which, like any fact of science, may lead to the discovery of a thousand others; a fact which may have escaped the vigilant sagacity of observers, or which may have been totally abandoned to the blind credulity of worthy soft-headed persons, or, in short, since the reign of a kind of false philosophy, the offspring of scientific pride, may have been delivered over to the presumption of men of false wisdom. Thouvenel found a man named Bleton, whose business was that of a _sourcier_, or discoverer of springs by means of the divining rod, and upon this man he made more than six hundred observations, many of them in the presence of above one hundred and fifty persons, mostly of important stations, and very creditable from their high character, who testify to the truth of the observed phenomena. Among others, was M. Jadelet, professor of physic at Nancy, a man eminent for his abilities, who was not only a witness of these experiments, but was actually concerned in the greatest part of them. As in the case of Lady Milbanke, with Bleton an _internal feeling_ was coincident with the movement of the rod. Whenever this man was in a place where there existed subterraneous waters, he was immediately sensible of a lively impression, referable to the diaphragm, which he called his "_commotion_." This was followed by a sense of oppression in the upper part of the chest; at the same time he felt a shock, with general tremor and chilliness, staggering of the legs, stiffness of the wrists, with twitchings, a concentrated pulse, which gradually diminished. All these symptoms were more or less strong, according to the volume and depth of the water, and they were more sensibly felt when Bleton _went in a direction against_ the subterranean current than when he _followed its course_. Stagnant water under ground did not affect him; nor did open sheets of water, ponds, lakes or rivers affect him. The nervous system of this man must have been susceptible, since he was more sensibly affected by change of weather and variations in the atmosphere than other persons;