288 THE RAVEN. 



croaking seem to have rendered him of vast importance in those 

 days ; when old women were known to travel through the air on 

 broom-staffs, and when the destiny of man was frequently foretold 

 by the flight of birds. Nay, in our own times, the raven has not 

 quite lost all claim to the knowledge of things to come ; for good 

 farmer Muckdrag's wife, whilst jogging on with eggs to market, knew 

 that there was mischief brewing as soon as she had heard a raven 

 croak on the unlucky side of the road. 



" That raven on the left-hand oak, 

 Curse on his ill-betiding croak, 

 Bodes me no good." 



She had scarcely uttered this, when down came her old stumbling 

 mare to the ground. Her every egg was smashed to atoms ; and 

 whilst she lay sprawling on the ruins of her oological speculation, 

 she was perfectly convinced, in her own mind, that the raven had 

 clearly foreseen her irreparable misadventure. Our royal sovereign, 

 good King Arthur of ancient days, was known to have passed into 

 the body of a raven. Cervantes tells us of a tradition, current 

 through the whole of Great Britain, that this much-beloved monarch 

 was changed into a raven by the art of witchcraft ; and that in the due 

 course of time he would be again in possession of his crown and 

 sceptre. I don't care how soon. Cervantes adds, that from the 

 day on which the change took place, no Englishman has ever been 

 known to kill a raven, and that the whole British nation is momently 

 expecting its king's return. I should like to see King Arthur's face, 

 when his loving subjects tell him of our national debt and show him 

 the civil list. Methinks his long-lost majesty will groan in spirit, 

 when he learns that the first was a present from Dutch William, and 

 the second a donation to the country by the cormorant-traitors who 

 had driven away our last Catholic king, because he had proclaimed 

 universal liberty of conscience, and had begun to question their right 

 to the stolen property. 



The ancients were of opinion that the raven lived to an extreme 

 old age. I do not exactly see how the longevity can be proved, 

 whilst the bird roves at liberty from place to place, far beyond the 

 reach of man; and, indeed, the difficulty of proof is noways diminished 



