272 



THE RAVEN. 



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 no- 

 ways diminished when the raven is brought up tame 



