THE RAVEN. 173 



of death, and wherever that awful association mingles, 

 there is sure to be sublimity. Like the vulture, he 

 " scents the battle from afar ;" and when the prolonged 

 work of death prevents sepulture in that sultry state of 

 the atmosphere in which heaps of slain are the most 

 sickening to look upon, the raven comes to his foul 

 banquet, and scoops out the eyes of the dead and 

 the dying, while the last and effortless moan of the 

 latter, together with the gloomy croak of the spoiler as 

 he gloats on his prey, are drowned amid the volleyings 

 and clangour that still continue to monopolize all the 

 atmosphere that can be worked into lofty sound. 



It is one of the most natural and pardonable of all 

 superstitions, that that which hastens first to the place 

 of death should have the greatest foreknowledge, or the 

 nearest approximation to foreknowledge, of the event. 

 Even now, when nobody believes in it, we feel that 

 there is something, if not true in philosophy, at least in 

 accordance with appearances, in the name of the ' ' bod- 

 ing" raven; and Shakespeare could not have given to the 

 general apprehension of mankind a more unequivocal 

 hint that there was murder to be committed, or given 

 a more accurate touch of the bird, than when he makes 

 Lady Macbeth, in the full resolve and anxious expec- 

 tation of the tragedy which she had then made sure, 

 begin her dreadful soliloquy with 



" The raven himself is hoarse, 

 That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 

 Under my battlements." 



Then, again, we have 



"Th* enchanted banner of the bloody Dane, " 



