and Shakspeare, referring to the same custom and the same doctrine, makes Constance in King John exclaim,—

"What hath this day deserv'd? What hath it done;

That it in golden letters should be set,

Among the high tides, in the kalendar?

Nay rather

But of omens predictive of good and bad fortune, or of the common events in life, the catalogue may be said to have no termination, and we must refer the reader, for this degrading display of human weakness and folly, to the Vulgar Errors of Browne, and to the Commentaries of Brand on Bourne's Antiquities, confining the subject to that class of the ominous which has been deemed portentive of the great, the dreadful, and the strange, and which, being surrounded by a certain degree of dignity and awe, is consequently best adapted to the genius of poetry.

That danger, death, or preternatural occurrences should be preceded by warnings or intimations, would appear comformable to the idea of a superintending Providence, and therefore faith in such omens has been indulged in, by almost every nation, especially in the infancy of its civilisation. The most usual monitions of this kind are, 66 Lamentings heard in the air; shakings and tremblings of the earth; sudden gloom at noon-day; the appearance of meteors; the shooting of stars; eclipses of the sun and moon; the moon of a bloody hue; the shrieking of owls; the croaking of ravens; the shrilling of crickets; the night-howling of dogs; the clicking of the death-watch; the chattering of pies; the wild neighing of horses, their running wild and eating each other; the cries of fairies; the gibbering of ghosts; the withering of bay-trees; showers of blood; blood dropping thrice from the nose; horrid dreams; demoniacal voices; ghastly apparitions; winding sheets; corpse-candles; night-fires, and strange and fearful noises." Of the greater part of this tremendous list Shakspeare has availed himself; introducing them as the precursors of murder, sudden death, disasters and superhuman events. Thus, previous to the assassination of Julius Cæsar, he tells us, that—

and again, as predictive of the same event, he adds, in another place

"There is one within,

Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.

A lioness hath whelped in the streets;

And graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead:
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,

In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the capitol:

The Dutchesse of Malfy, act iii. sc. 3. Vide Ancient British Drama, vol. iii p. 526.

The noise of battle hurtled in the air,

Horses do neigh, and dying men did groan;

And ghosts did shriek and squeal about the streets."

Julius Cæsar, act iii. ɛc. 2.

The circumstances which are related as preceding and accompanying the murder of Duncan are, perhaps, still more awful and impressive. "The night,"

Even like the deed that's done. On Tuesday last,

A falcon, tow'ring in her pride of place,

Was by a mousing owl hawk'd at, and kill'd.

Rosse. And Duncan's horses (a thing most strange and certain),
Beauteous and swift, the minions of their race,

Turn'd wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,

Contending 'gainst obedience, as they would make
War with mankind.

Old M.

'Tis said, they eat each other.

Rosse. Thy did so; to the amazement of mine eyes,
That look'd upon't."

Macbeth, Act ii. sc. 3.

In the play of King Richard II. also, the poet has with great taste and skill selected the following prodigies, as forerunners of the death or fall of kings :—

"'Tis thought, the king is dead; we will not stay.
The bay-trees in our country are all wither'd,
And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
The pale-fac'd moon looks bloody on the earth,
And lean-look'd prophets whisper fearful change;
Rich men look sad, and ruffians dance and leap,-
The one, in fear to lose what they enjoy,
The other, to enjoy by rage and war:

These signs forerun the death or fall of kings."

Act ii. sc. 4.

Omens of the same portentous kind are said to have attended the births of Owen Glendower and Richard III., and Shakspeare has accordingly availed himself of the tradition in a manner equally poetical and striking; the former says of himself,

"At my nativity,

The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,

Of burnings cressets; and, at my birth,
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shak'd like a coward:-

The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields: "

Henry IV. Part I. act. iii. sc. 1.

and Henry VI., in his interview with Richard in the Tower, reproaching the tyrant for his cruelties, tells him, as indicative of his future deeds, that

"The owl shriek'd at thy birth, an evil sign;

The night-crow cried, aboding luckless time;

Dogs howl'd, and hideous tempests shook down trees;
The raven rook'd her on the chimney's top,

And chattering pies in dismal discords sung."

Henry IV. Part III. Act v. sc. 6.

Dreams, considered as prognostics of good or evil, are frequently introduced by Shakspeare.

66 My dreams will sure prove ominous to day,"

exclaims Andromache; while Romeo declares,

"My dreams presage some joyful news at hand."

Act v. sc. 1.

But it is chiefly as precursors of misfortune that the poet has availed himself of their supposed influence as omens of future fate. There are few passages in his dramas more terrific than the dreams of Richard the Third and Clarence; the latter, especially, is replete with the most fearful imagery, and makes the blood run chill with horror.

"Demoniacal voices and shrieks, or monitory intimations and appearances" from the tutelary genius of a family, were likewise imagined to precede the deaths of important individuals; a superstition to which Shakspeare alludes in the following lines from his Troilus and Cressida :

"Troil. Hark! you are call'd: Some say, the Genius so
Cries, Come! to him that instantly must die."

Act iv. sc. 4.

This superstition was formerly very prevalent in England, and still prevails in several districts of Ireland, and in the more remote parts of the Highlands of Scotland. Howell tells us, that he saw at a lapidary's in 1632, a monumental stone, prepared for four persons of the name of Oxenham, before the death of each of whom, the inscription stated a white bird to have appeared and fluttered around the bed, while the patient was in the last agony; and Glanville, remarks Mr Scott, mentions one family, the members of which received this solemn sign by music, the sound of which floated from the family-residence, and seemed to die in a neighbouring wood. It is related, that several of the great Highland families are accustomed to receive intimations of approaching fate by domestic spirits or tutelary genii, who sometimes assume the form of a bird or of a bloody spectre of a tall woman dressed in white, shrieking wildly round the house. Thus, observes Mr. Pennant, the family of Rothmurcas had the Bodachan-dun, or the Ghost of the Hill; the Kinchardines, the Spectre of the Bloody Hand; Gartinley house was haunted by Bodach-Gartin; and Tullock Gorms by Maugh-Monlach, or the Girl with the Hairy Left Hand. In certain places, he says, the death of the people is supposed to be foretold by the cries of Benshie, or the Fairy's Wife, uttered along the very path where the funeral is to pass; and it has been added by others, that when the Benshie becomes visible, she appears in the shape of an old woman, with a blue mantle and streaming hair.

Of this omen, and of another of a similar kind, Mr. Scott has made his usual poetical use in the Lady of the Lake, where he relates of Brian, the lone Seer of the Desert, that

"Late had he heard in prophet's dream,

The fatal Ben-Shie's boding scream,

• Troilus and Cressida, act v. sc. Lady of the Lake, p. 348.

3.

Familiar Letters, edit. 1726. p. 247.