e had Satan substituted for soul. His
contemporaries, as is well known, would say of him: "He hath a demon,
yea, seven devils are entered into him." His detractors actually
regarded this unhappy poet as an incarnation of the ruler of Hades
(cf. _North American Review_, 1856; _Edinburgh Review_, 1858; _Dublin
University Magazine_, 1875). It was but recently that a writer in the
_New York Times_ declared Poe to have been "grub-staked by demons."

The story "Bon-Bon" offers a specimen of Poe's grimly grotesque
humour. It first appeared in the _Broadway Journal_ of August, 1835.

The devil of this most un-American of all American authors is not the
child of New World fancy, but part of European imagination. The
scenery of the story is aptly laid in the land of Robert le Diable.

Poe's description of the devil is, on the whole, fully in accord with
the universally accredited conception of his ordinary appearance. His
brutal hoofs and savage horns and beastly tail are all there, only
discreetly hid under a dress which any gentleman might wear. The devil
is very proud of this epithet given him by William Shakespeare; and
from that time on, it has been his greatest ambition to be a
gentleman, in outer appearance at least; and to his credit it must be
said that he has so well succeeded in his efforts to resemble a
gentleman that it is now very hard to tell the two apart. The devil is
accredited in popular imagination with long ears, a long (sometimes
upturned) nose, a wide mouth, and teeth of a lion. It is on account of
his fangs that Satan has been called a lion by the biblical writers.
But although the prince of darkness can assume any form in the heavens
above, in the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth, he has
never appeared as a lion. This, I believe, is out of deference to
Judah, whom his father also called a lion. Hairiness is a pretty
general characteristic of the devil. His hairy skin he probably
inherited from the ancient fauns and satyrs. Esau is believed to have
been a hairy demon. "Old Harry" is a corruption of "Old Hairy." As a
rule, Old Nick is not pictured as bald, but has a head covered with
locks like serpents. These snaky tresses, which already "Monk" Lewis
wound around the devil's head, are borrowed, according to Sir Walter
Scott, from the shield of Minerva. His face, however, is usually
hairless. A beard has rarely been accorded to Satan. His red beard on
the mediaeval stage probably came from