wk” 
674 RAVEN. 
The above-mentioned circumstances i-.ken into consideration, one 
would suppose that the lot of the subject of this chapter would have. 
been of a different complékion from what history and tradition inform 
us is the fact. But in every country, we are told, the Raven is con- 
sidered an ominous bird, whose croakings foretell approaching evil; 
and many a crooked beldam has given interpretation to these oracles, 
of a nature to infuse terror into a whole community. Henge this ill- 
fated bird, from time immemorial, has been the innocent subject of 
vulgar obloquy and detestation. ; 4 
Augury, or the art of foretelling future events by the flight, cries, or 
motions of birds, descended from the Chaldeans to the Greeks, thence 
to the Etrurians, and from them it was transmitted to the Romans.* 
The crafty legislators of those celebrated nations, from a deep knowl- 
edge of human nature, made superstition a principal feature of their 
religious ceremonies, well knowing that it required a more than ordi- 
nary policy to govern a multitude, ever liable to the fatal influences 
of passion ; and 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 subservient; and 
the Romans having consecrated it to Apollo, as to the god of divina- 
tion, 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 prescience. ae 
But the ancients have not been the only people infected with this 
species of superstition; the moderns, even though favored 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 sa- 
cerdotal orders, for the purposes 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 ardor 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 terror. -Shak- 
speare puts the following malediction into the mouth of his Caliban: — 
“ As wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed 
With Raven’s feather from unwholésomeé fen, 
Drop on you both! ? + e 
* That the science of augury is very ancient, we learn from the Hebrew law- 
giver, who prohibits it, as well as every other kind of divination. Deut. chap. xviii. 
The Romans derived their knowledge of augury chiefiy from the Tuscans or Etru- 
rians, who practised it in the earliest times. ‘This art was known. in Italy before 
the time of Romulus, since that prince did not commence the building of Rome till 
he had taken the auguries. ‘The successors ‘of Romulus, from a conviction of the 
usefulness of the science, and at the same time not to render it contemptible by 
becoming too familiar, employed the most skilful augurs'from Etruria to introduce 
the practice of it into their religious ceremonies. And, by a decree of the senate, 
some of the youth of the best families in Rome were annually sent into Tuscany 
to be instructed in this art. — Vide Ciceron. de Divin. ; also Calmet and the Abbé 
Banier. : 
+ Tempest, Act i. scene 2. 
