Some saidled a she-ape, all grathed into green,

Some hobland on a hemp stalk, hovard to the hight,
The king of Pharie and his court, with the elf queen,

With many elfish incubus was ridand that night;'

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:

"This night is Hallowe'en, Janet;

The morn is Hallowday;

And, gin ye dare your true love win,
Ye have nae time to stay.

The night it is good Hallowein,
When fairy folk will ride;

And they, that wad their true love win,

At Miles Cross they maun bide."*

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."

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 enjoined to seek a south running spring or rivulet, where "three laird 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.*

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. †

The powers of description which Burns has evinced in one of the stanzas, while relating the effects of this spell, are truly great:

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:

"Saint Withold footed thrice the wold;

He met the Night-mare, and her nine-fold;
Bid her alight,

And her troth plight,

And, aroint thee, witch, aroint thee!"

Act iii. sc. 4.

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 : —

"St. George, S. George, our ladies knight,

He walkt by daie, so did he by night:
Untill such time as he hir found,

He hir beat and he hir bound.
Untill hir troth she to him plight,

She would not come to hir (him) that night : " *

a form which is quoted nearly verbatim, and professedly as a night-spell, in the Monsieur Thomas of Fletcher. It should be observed, that the influence over

Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft,

p. 87.

It would appear from the passage just quoted from Shakspeare, that he considered St. Withold as commanding this female incubus to alight from those she was riding and tormenting; but Fuseli and Darwin, in their delineations, appear to have mounted a male fiend, or incubus, on her back, who descending from his steed, sate on the breasts of those whom he had selected for his victims. The personifications of the painter and the modern poet are forcibly drawn and highly terrific :—

"So on his NIGHTMARE through the evening fog
Flits the squab Fiend o'er fen, and lake, and bog;
Seeks some love-wilder'd Maid with sleep oppress'd,
Alights, and grinning sits upon her breast.

-Such as of late amid the murky sky
Was mark'd by FUSELI's poetic eye;

Whose daring tints, with SHAKSPEARE'S happiest grace,

Gave to the airy phantom form and place

Back o'er her pillow sinks her blushing head,

Her snow-white limbs hang helpless from the bed;
While with quick sighs, and suffocative breath,

Her interrupted heart-pulse swims in death.

-Then shrieks of captur'd towns, and widow's tears,

Pale lovers stretch'd upon their blood-stain'd biers,
The headlong precipice that thwarts her flight,

The trackless desert, the cold starless night,

And stern-eye'd Murderer with his knife behind,
In dread succession agonize her mind.
O'er her fair limbs convulsive tremors fleet,
Start in her hands, and struggle in her feet;
In vain to scream with quivering lips she tries,
And strains in palsy'd lids her tremulous eyes;
In vain she wills to run, fly, swim, walk, creep;
The WILL presides not in the bower of SLEEP.
On her fair bosom sits the Demon-Ape
Erect, and balances his bloated shape;
Rolls in their marble orbs his Gorgon-eyes,
And drinks with leathern ears her tender cries."
Botanic Garden, 4to. edit.

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 imbecilities 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 group 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, etc., 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 daic and houre, and count that time unlucky for a journie. Otherwise, he that receiveth a mischance, will 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 they sneeze 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 living creature should passe betweene two friends as they walke together; for they say it portendeth a devision of friendship.-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:

"Remember on S. Vincent's daie,

If that the sunne his beames displaie.

If Paule th' apostles daie be cleare,

It doth foreshew a luckie yeare.

If Maries purifieng daie,

Be cleare and bright with sunnie raie,
Then frost and cold shall be much more,
After the feast than was before, &c. "*

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—

* Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, p. 203-205.

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

"What hath this day deserv'd? What hath it done;

That it in golden letters should be set,
Among the high tides, in the kalendar?
Nay rather-

if it must stand still, let wives with child
Pray, that their burdens may not fall this day,
Lest that their hopes prodigiously be cross'd:
But (except) on this day, let seamen fear no wreck;
No bargains break, that are not this day made:
This day, all things begun come to an ill end;
Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change!"

Act iii. sc. 1.

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.

66

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— "In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

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

"There is one within,

Besides the things that we have heard and seen,
Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.

A lioness hath whelped in the streets;

And graves have yawn'd and yielded up their dead :
Fierce fiery warriors fight upon the clouds,

In ranks, and squadrons, and right form of war,
Which drizzled blood upon the capitol:

The Dutchesse of Malfy, act iii. sc. 3. Vide Ancient British Drama, vol. iii p. 526.