166 RAVEN. 



who, without some timely restraints, would burst forth like a 

 torrent, whose course is marked by wide-spreading desolation. 

 Hence, to the purposes of polity the Raven was made subser- 

 vient; and the Romans having consecrated it to Apollo, as to 

 the god of divination, its flight was observed with the greatest 

 solemnity; and its tones and inflections of voice were noted 

 with a precision, which intimated a belief in its infallible pre- 

 science. 



But the ancients have not been the only people infected with 

 this species of superstition; the moderns, even though favoured 

 with the light of Christianity, have exhibited as much folly, 

 through the impious curiosity of prying into futurity, as the 

 Romans themselves. It is true that modern nations have not 

 instituted their sacred colleges or sacerdotal orders, for the pur- 

 poses of divination; but in all countries there have been self- 

 constituted augurs, whose interpretations of omens have been 

 received with religious respect by the credulous multitude. 

 Even at this moment, in some parts of the world, if a Raven 

 alight on a village church, the whole fraternity is in an uproar; 

 and Heaven is importuned, in all the ardour of devotion, to 

 avert the impending calamity. 



The poets have taken advantage of this weakness of human 

 nature, and in their hands the Raven is a fit instrument of ter- 

 ror. Shakspeare puts the following malediction into the mouth 

 of his Caliban: 



" As wicked dew, as ere my mother brush'd, 

 With Raven's feather, from unwholesome fen 

 Drop on you both!"* 



The ferocious wife of Macbeth, on being advised of the ap- 

 proach of Duncan, whose death she had conspired, thus ex- 

 claims: 



" The Raven himself is hoarse, 

 That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 

 Under my battlements !"f 



* Tempest, act i, scene 2. t Act i, scene 5. 



