and in Macbeth the same imagery is repeated—

These lines from Antony and Cleopatra and Macbeth, which are founded on a passage in North's Plutarch, where the soothsayer says to Antony, "thy Demon, (that is to say, the good angell and spirit that keepeth thee) is affraied of his," sufficiently prove that the Roman Catholic doctrine of a good and evil angel is immediately drawn from the belief of Pagan antiquity in the agency of good and evil genii, a dogma to which we know their greatest philosophers were addicted, as is apparent from the Demon of Socrates.

Of the general, and as it may be termed, the patriarchal, doctrine of the ministry of angels, no poet has made so admirable an use as Milton, who tells us, in his Paradise Lost, that

We must be permitted to observe, in this place, that Dr. Horsley has, with great propriety, drawn a marked distinction between the full-formed hierarchy of fanciful theologians, and the Scripture-account of angelic agency; while he reprobates the one, he supports the other; "those," says he, "who broached this doctrine (of an hierarchy of angels governing this world) could tell us exactly how many orders there are, and how many angels in each order; that the different orders have their different departments in government assigned to them; some, constantly attending in the presence of God, form his cabinet council; others are his provincial governors; every kingdom in the world having its appointed guardian angel, to whose management it is intrusted: others again are supposed to have the charge and custody of individuals. This system is, in truth, nothing better than Pagan polytheism." He then subsequently and most judiciously gives us the following summary of Biblical information on the subject: "that the holy angels," he remarks, "are often employed by God in his government of this sublunary world, is indeed clearly to be proved by holy writ: that they have powers over the matter of the universe analogous to the powers over it which men possess, greater in extent, but still limited, is a thing which might reasonably be supposed, if it were not declared: but it seems to be confirmed by many passages of holy writ, from which it seems also evident that they are occasionally, for certain specific purposes, commissioned to exercise those powers to a prescribed extent. That the evil angels possessed, before the fall, the like powers, which they are still occasionally permitted to exercise for the punishment of wicked nations, seems also evident. That they have a power over the human sensory (which is part of the material universe), which they are occasionally permitted to exercise, by means of which they may inflict diseases, suggest evil thoughts, and be the instruments of temptations, must also be admitted."[340:A]

We shall conclude these observations on St. Michael's Day by adding, that in both the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was the custom of landlords to invite their tenants on this day, and to dine them in their great halls on Geese; birds which were then only kept by the gentry, and therefore esteemed a great delicacy. We must consequently set aside the tradition which attributes the introduction of this bird on the festival of St. Michael to Queen Elizabeth; the tale avers, that, being on her road to Tilbury Fort, she dined on Michaelmas Day 1588, at Sir Neville Umfreville's seat, near that place, and that the knight, recollecting her partiality for high-seasoned food, had taken care to procure for her a savoury goose, after eating heartily of which she called for a half-pint bumper of Burgundy, and had scarcely drank it off to the destruction of the Spanish Armada, when she received the news of that joyful event; delighted with the speedy accomplishment of her toast, she is said to have annually commemorated this day with a goose, and that, of course, the example was followed by the Court and through the kingdom at large. The custom, however, must be referred to a preceding age, in which it will be found that the nobility and gentry had usually this delicious bird at their tables, both on St. Michael's and St. Martin's Day.[341:A]

We now approach another remarkably superstitious period of the year, the observance of which took place on the 31st of October, being the Vigil of All Saints' Day, and has been therefore commonly termed All Hallow Eve. In the North of England, and in Scotland, this was formerly a night of rejoicing and of the most mysterious rites and ceremonies. As beyond the Tweed the harvest was seldom completely got in before the close of October, Halloween became a kind of Harvest-home-feast; thus, Mr. Shaw informs us, in his History of the Province of Moray, that "a solemnity was kept, on the Eve of the first of November, as a thanksgiving for the safe Ingathering of the produce of the fields. This I am told, but have not seen it, is observed in Buchan, and other countries, by having Hallow-Eve Fires kindled on some rising ground."[341:B] In England Hallow-eve has been generally called Nut-crack Night, from one of the numerous spells usually had recourse to at this season; and in Shakspeare it is alluded to under the customary appellation of Hallowmas, where Speed tells Valentine in the Two Gentlemen of Verona, that he knows him to be in love, because he has learnt "to speak puling, like a beggar at Hallowmas[341:C];" a simile which refers to a relique of the Roman Catholic Festival of All Souls Day on the 2d of November, when prayers were offered up for the repose of the souls of the departed; it being the custom, in Shakspeare's time, and is still, we believe, observed in some parts of the North, for the poor on All-Saints-Day to go a souling, as they term it, and in a plaintive or puling voice to petition for soul-cakes. "In various parts of England," remarks Brady, "the remembrance of monastic customs is still preserved by giving oaten cakes to the poor neighbours, conformably to what was once the general usage, particularly in Lancashire, Yorkshire, Herefordshire, &c. when, by way of expressing gratitude, the receivers of this liberality offered the following homely benediction:

bearing more the appearance, in these enlightened days, of rustic scoff, than of thankfulness."[342:A]

What has rendered All-Hallow-Eve, however, a period of mysterious dread, is the tradition, that on this night the host of evil spirits, witches, wizards, &c. are executing their baneful errands, and that the fairy court holds a grand annual procession, during which, those who have been carried off by the fairies may be recovered, provided the attempt be made within a year and a day from the abstraction of the person stolen. That this achievement, which was attended with great peril, could only be performed on Hallow-Eve, and that this night was esteemed the anniversary of the elfin tribe, may be established on the evidence of our northern poets. Montgomery, in his Flyting against Polwart, published about 1584, thus mentions the procession:

and in the ballad called Young Tamlane, whose antiquity is ascertained from being noticed in the Complaynt of Scotland, the chief incident of the story is the recovery of Tamlane from the power of the fairies on this holy eve:—

It is still recorded by tradition, relates Mr. Scott, that "the wife of a farmer in Lothian having been carried off by the fairies, she, during the year of probation, repeatedly appeared on Sunday, in the midst of her children, combing their hair. On one of these occasions she was accosted by her husband; when she related to him the unfortunate event which had separated them, instructed him by what means he might win her, and exhorted him to exert all his courage, since her temporal and eternal happiness depended on the success of his attempt. The farmer, who ardently loved his wife, set out on Hallowe'en, and, in the midst of a plot of furze, waited impatiently for the procession of the fairies. At the ringing of the fairy bridles, and the wild unearthly sound which accompanied the cavalcade, his heart failed him, and he suffered the ghostly train to pass by without interruption. When the last had rode past, the whole troop vanished, with loud shouts of laughter and exultation; among which he plainly discovered the voice of his wife, lamenting that he had lost her for ever."[344:A]

Numerous have been the ceremonies, spells, and charms, which formerly distinguished All-Hallow-Eve. In England, except in a few remote places in the North, they have ceased to be observed for the last half century; but in the West of Scotland they are still retained with a kind of religious veneration, as is sufficiently proved by the inimitable poem of Burns, entitled Halloween, which, in a vein of exquisite poetry and genuine humour, minutely details the various superstitions, which have been practised on this night from time immemorial. Of these, as including all which prevailed in England, and which were, in a great degree, common to both countries, in the time of Shakspeare, we shall give a few sketches, nearly in the words of Burns, as annexed in the notes to his poem, merely observing that one of the spells, that of sowing hemp-seed, is omitted, as having been already described among the rites of Midsummer-Eve.

The first ceremony of Hallow-Eve consisted in the lads and lasses pulling each a stock, or plant of kail. They were to go out, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and to pull the first they met with. Its being big or little, straight or crooked, was prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of all their spells—the husband or wife. If any yird, or earth, stuck to the root, that was considered as the tocher, or fortune; and the taste of the custoc, that is, the heart of the stem, was deemed indicative of the natural temper and disposition. Lastly, the stems, or, to give them their ordinary appellation, the runts, were placed somewhere above the head of the door; and the Christian names of the people whom chance brought into the house, were, according to the priority of placing the runts, the names in question.

In the second, the lasses were to go to the barn-yard, and pull each, at three several times, a stalk of oats. If the third stalk wanted the top-pickle, that is, the grain at the top of the stalk, the party in question would come to the marriage-bed any thing but a maid.

The third depended on the burning of nuts, and was a favourite charm both in England and Scotland. A lad and lass were named to each particular nut, as they laid them in the fire, and accordingly as they burnt quietly together, or started from beside each other, the course and issue of the courtship were to be determined.

In the fourth, success could only be obtained by strictly adhering to the following directions. Steal out, all alone, to the kiln, and, darkling, throw into the pot, a clue of blue yarn; wind it in a new clue off the old one: and, towards the latter end, something will hold the thread; demand, who holds it? and an answer will be returned from the kiln-pot, by naming the christian and sirname of your future spouse.

To perform the fifth, you were to take a candle, and go alone to a looking-glass; you were then to eat an apple before it, combing your hair all the time; when the face of your conjugal companion, to be, will be seen in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder.

The sixth was likewise a solitary charm, in which it was necessary to go alone and unperceived to the barn, and open both doors, taking them off the hinges, if possible, least the being, about to appear, should shut the doors, and do you some mischief. Then you were to take the machine used in winnowing the corn, and go through all the attitudes of letting down the grain against the wind; and on the third repetition of this ceremony, an apparition would be seen passing through the barn, in at the windy door, and out at the other, having both the figure of your future companion for life, and also the appearance or retinue, marking the employment or station in life.

To secure an effective result from the seventh, you were ordered to take an opportunity of going, unnoticed, to a Bear-stack, and fathom it three times round; when during the last fathom of the last time, you would be sure to catch in your arms the appearance of your destined yoke-fellow.

In order to carry the eighth into execution, one or more were injoined to seek a south running spring or rivulet, where "three lairds lands meet," and to dip into it the left shirt-sleeve. You were then to go to bed in sight of a fire, and to hang the wet sleeve before it to dry; it was necessary, however, to lie awake, when at midnight, an apparition, having the exact figure of the future husband or wife, would come, and turn the sleeve, as if to dry the other side of it.[346:A]

For the due performance of the ninth, you were directed to take three dishes; to put clean water in one, foul water in another, and to leave the third empty: you were then to blindfold a person, and lead him to the hearth where the dishes were ranged, ordering him to dip the left hand; when, if this happened to be in the clean water, it was a sign that the future conjugal mate would come to the bar of matrimony a maid; if in the foul, a widow; if in the empty dish, it foretold, with equal certainty, no marriage at all. This ceremony was to be repeated three times, and every time the arrangement of the dishes was to be altered.[347:A]

Such are the various superstitions which were formerly observed at peculiar periods of the year, and which still maintain a certain portion of credit among the peasantry of Scotland and the North of England. To the catalogue of Saints thus loaded with the rites of popular credulity, may be added one whose celebrity seems to be entirely founded on the casual notice of Shakspeare. In his Tragedy of King Lear, Edgar introduces St. Withold as an opponent, and a protector against the assaults, of that formidable Incubus, the Night-mare:—

Warburton informs us, that this agency of the Saint is taken from a story of him in his legend, and that he was thence invoked as the patron saint against the distemper, called the night-mare; but Mr. Tyrwhitt declares, that he could not find this adventure in the common legends of St. Vitalis, whom he supposes to be synonymous with St. Withold. It is probable that Shakspeare took the hint, for the ascription of this achievement to Withold, from Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, where a similar power is attributed to St. George. That writer, after mentioning that there are magical cures for the night-mare, gives the following as an example:—

a form which is quoted nearly verbatim, and professedly as a night-spell, in the Monsieur Thomas of Fletcher.[348:B] It should be observed, that the influence over incubi ascribed by our poet to St. Withold, has been subsequently given to other Calendarian saints, and especially to that dreaded personage St. Swithin, who is indebted to Mr. Colman, in his alteration of Lear, for the transference of this singular power.

The mass of popular credulity, indeed, is so enormous, that, limited, as we are in this chapter, to the consideration of only a portion of the subject, it is still difficult, from the number and variety of the materials, to present a sketch which shall be sufficiently distinct and perspicuous. It is highly interesting, however, to observe to what striking poetical purposes Shakspeare has converted these imbecillities of mind, these workings of fear and ignorance; how by his management almost every article which he has selected from the mass of vulgar delusion, assumes a capability of impressing the strongest and most cultivated mind with grateful terror or sublime emotion. No branch, for instance, of the popular creed has been more extended, or more burdened with folly, than the belief in Omens, and yet what noble imagery has not the poet drawn forth from this accumulation of fear-struck fancy and childish apprehension.

With the view of placing the detail of this vast groupe in a clearer light, it will be necessary to ascertain, what were the principal omens most accredited in the days of Shakspeare, and after giving a catalogue of those most worthy of notice, to exhibit a few pictures by the poet as founded on some of the most remarkable articles in the enumeration, and afterwards to fill up the outline with additional circumstances from other resources.

How prone the subjects of Elizabeth were to pry into futurity, through the medium of omens, auguries, and prognostications, may be learnt from the following passage in Scot, taken from his chapter on the "common peoples fond and superstitious collections and observations." "Amongst us," says he, "there be manie wemen and effeminat men (manie papists alwaies, as by their superstition may appeere) that make great divinations upon the shedding of salt, wine, &c. and for the observation of daies, and houres use as great witchcraft as in anie thing. For if one chance to take a fall from a horse, either in a slipperie or stumbling waie, he will note the daie and houre, and count that time unlucky for a journie. Otherwise, he that receiveth a mischance, wil consider whether he met not a cat, or a hare, when he went first out of his doores in the morning; or stumbled not at the threshold at his going out; or put not on his shirt the wrong side outwards; or his left shoo on his right foote.

"Many will go to bed againe, if the neeze before their shooes be on their feet; some will hold fast their left thombe in their right hand when they hickot; or else will hold their chinne with their right hand whiles a gospell is soong. It is thought verie ill lucke of some, that a child, or anie other living creature, should passe betweene two friends as they walke together; for they say it portendeth a division of freendship.—The like follie is to be imputed unto them, that observe (as true or probable) old verses, wherein can be no reasonable cause of such effects: which are brought to passe onlie by God's power, and at his pleasure. Of this sort be these that follow:

In the almanacks of Elizabeth's and James's reigns, it was customary, not only to mark the days supposed to have an influence over the weather, but to distinguish, likewise, those considered as lucky or unlucky for making bargains, or transacting business on; and, accordingly, Webster represents a character in one of his plays declaring—

and Shakspeare, referring to the same custom and the same doctrine, makes Constance in King John exclaim,—

But of omens predictive of good and bad fortune, or of the common events in life, the catalogue may be said to have no termination, and we must refer the reader, for this degrading display of human weakness and folly, to the Vulgar Errors of Browne, and to the Commentaries of Brand on Bourne's Antiquities, confining the subject to that class of the ominous which has been deemed portentive of the great, the dreadful, and the strange, and which, being surrounded by a certain degree of dignity and awe, is consequently best adapted to the genius of poetry.

That danger, death, or preternatural occurrences should be preceded by warnings or intimations, would appear comformable to the idea of a superintending providence, and therefore faith in such omens has been indulged in, by almost every nation, especially in the infancy of its civilisation. The most usual monitions of this kind are, Lamentings heard in the air; shakings and tremblings of the earth; sudden gloom at noon-day; the appearance of meteors; the shooting of stars; eclipses of the sun and moon; the moon of a bloody hue; the shrieking of owls; the croaking of ravens; the shrilling of crickets; the night-howling of dogs; the clicking of the death-watch; the chattering of pies; the wild neighing of horses, their running wild and eating each other; the cries of fairies; the gibbering of ghosts; the withering of bay-trees; showers of blood; blood dropping thrice from the nose; horrid dreams; demoniacal voices; ghastly apparitions; winding sheets; corpse-candles; night-fires, and strange and fearful noises. Of the greater part of this tremendous list Shakspeare has availed himself; introducing them as the precursors of murder, sudden death, disasters, and superhuman events. Thus, previous to the assassination of Julius Cæsar, he tells us, that—

and again, as predictive of the same event, he adds, in another place—

The circumstances which are related as preceding and accompanying the murder of Duncan are, perhaps, still more awful and impressive. "The night," says Lennox,

In the play of King Richard II. also, the poet has with great taste and skill selected the following prodigies, as forerunners of the death or fall of kings:—

Omens of the same portentous kind are said to have attended the births of Owen Glendower and Richard III., and Shakspeare has accordingly availed himself of the tradition in a manner equally poetical and striking; the former says of himself,—

and Henry VI., in his interview with Richard in the Tower, reproaching the tyrant for his cruelties, tells him, as indicative of his future deeds, that

Dreams, considered as prognostics of good or evil, are frequently introduced by Shakspeare.

exclaims Andromache[355:A]; while Romeo declares,

But it is chiefly as precursors of misfortune that the poet has availed himself of their supposed influence as omens of future fate. There are few passages in his dramas more terrific than the dreams of Richard the Third and Clarence; the latter, especially, is replete with the most fearful imagery, and makes the blood run chill with horror.

Dæmoniacal voices and shrieks, or monitory intimations and appearances from the tutelary genius of a family, were likewise imagined to precede the deaths of important individuals; a superstition to which Shakspeare alludes in the following lines from his Troilus and Cressida:

This superstition was formerly very prevalent in England, and still prevails in several districts of Ireland, and in the more remote parts of the Highlands of Scotland. Howell tells us, that he saw at a lapidary's in 1632, a monumental stone, prepared for four persons of the name of Oxenham, before the death of each of whom, the inscription stated a white bird to have appeared and fluttered around the bed, while the patient was in the last agony[355:D]; and Glanville, remarks Mr. Scott, mentions one family, the members of which received this solemn sign by music, the sound of which floated from the family-residence, and seemed to die in a neighbouring[355:E] wood. It is related, that several of the great Highland families are accustomed to receive intimations of approaching fate by domestic spirits or tutelary genii, who sometimes assume the form of a bird or of a bloody spectre of a tall woman dressed in white, shrieking wildly round the house. Thus, observes Mr. Pennant, the family of Rothmurcas had the Bodach-an-dun, or the Ghost of the Hill; the Kinchardines, the Spectre of the Bloody Hand; Gartinley house was haunted by Bodach-Gartin; and Tullock Gorms by Maug-Moulach, or the Girl with the Hairy Left Hand. In certain places, he says, the death of the people is supposed to be foretold by the cries of Benshi, or the Fairy's Wife, uttered along the very path where the funeral is to pass; and it has been added by others, that when the Benshi becomes visible, she appears in the shape of an old woman, with a blue mantle and streaming hair.

Of this omen, and of another of a similar kind, Mr. Scott has made his usual poetical use in the Lady of the Lake, where he relates of Brian, the lone Seer of the Desert, that

This last passage, he informs us, "is still believed to announce death to the ancient Highland family of M'Lean of Lochbuy. The spirit of an ancestor slain in battle, is heard to gallop along a stony bank, and then to ride thrice around the family-residence, ringing his fairy bridle, and thus intimating the approaching calamity."[356:A]

That the apparition of the Benshie, and the whole train of spectral and dæmoniacal warnings, were in full force in Ireland, during the seventeenth century, we have numerous proofs; the former was commonly called the Shrieking Woman, and of the latter a most remarkable instance is given by Mr. Scott, from the MS. Memoirs of the accomplished Lady Fanshaw. "Her husband, Sir Richard, and she, chanced, during their abode in Ireland, to visit a friend, the head of a sept, who resided in his ancient baronial castle, surrounded with a moat. At midnight, she was awakened by a ghastly and supernatural scream, and looking out of bed, beheld, by the moon-light, a female face and part of the form, hovering at the window. The distance from the ground, as well as the circumstance of the moat, excluded the possibility that what she beheld was of this world. The face was that of a young and rather handsome woman, but pale, and the hair, which was reddish, loose and dishevelled. The dress, which Lady Fanshaw's terror did not prevent her remarking accurately, was that of the ancient Irish. This apparition continued to exhibit itself for some time, and then vanished with two shrieks similar to that which had first excited Lady Fanshaw's attention. In the morning, with infinite terror, she communicated to her host what she had witnessed, and found him prepared not only to credit, but to account for the apparition. 'A near relation of my family,' said he, 'expired last night in this castle. We disguised our certain expectation of the event from you, lest it should throw a cloud over the cheerful reception which was your due. Now, before such an event happens in this family and castle, the female spectre whom you have seen always is visible. She is believed to be the spirit of a woman of inferior rank, whom one of my ancestors degraded himself by marrying, and whom afterwards, to expiate the dishonour done to his family, he caused to be drowned in the castle moat.'"[357:A]

Another set of omens predictive of disaster, supernatural agency, and death, was drawn from the appearances of lights, tapers, and fires. When a flame was seen by night resting on the tops of soldiers' lances, or playing and leaping by fits among the masts and sails of a ship, it was deemed the presage of misfortune; of defeat in battle in the one instance, and of destruction by tempest in the other. As the forerunner of a storm, Shakspeare has introduced it in his Tempest, where Ariel says,—

It was also conceived, that the presence of unearthly beings, ghosts, spirits, and demons, was instantly announced by an alteration in the tint of the lights which happened to be burning; a very popular notion, which the poet adopts in his Richard the Third, the tyrant exclaiming, as he awakens,