RAVEN. 



115 



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. 



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 them- 

 selves. It is true that modern nations have not instituted their 

 sacred colleges or sacerdotal orders, for the purposes of divina- 

 tion; 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. 

 Shakspeare puts the following malediction into the mouth of his 

 Caliban : 



As wicked dew, as e'er my mother brushed. 

 With RavevLS 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 exclaims: 



The Haven himself is hoarse, 

 That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan 

 Under my battlements It 



* Tempest, act \, scene 2. 



f Act i, scene 5. 



