PRESENTIMENTS. II. Shakespeare does not confine the occult gift to individuals. The mass of the people are also susceptible to the signs of the times, and see, sometimes in the phenomena of Nature sometimes in their own hearts, prophetic warning of evils to come. In Richard III., Act II., Scene 3, the dramatist gives us at once an example and a definition of this. "3RD CITIZEN: By a a divine instinct men's minds mistrust Ensuing dangers, as by proof we see The waters swell before a boisterous storm." It is interesting to note in passing that the "proof" in this instance is founded. on an error of fact, an error shared by his contemporary, Francis Bacon, who writes in his Essay of Sedition :-"As there are certain hollow blasts of wind and secret swelling of sea before a tempest, so there are in States." This, however, does not affect the statement that human instinct foresees national trouble. As animal instinct is developed and modified by environment, so the divine instinct in man evolves out B 2 of the combined intellect and imagination of the mass, guided by current events and the influence of prominent characters. In "Julius Cæsar" we have also examples of presentiment of evil among the people, but in a more objective form. Prodigies are seen or imagined, and ordinary sounds and sights are interpreted as evil omens. Before Cæsar's assassination we hear that : "A lioness hath whelped in the streets; And graves have yawned and yielded up their dead; Fierce fiery warriors fought upon the clouds In rank and squadrons and right forms of war," etc. In the play of "King John," Hubert tells the guilty monarch :— "They say five moons were seen tonight, Four fixed, and the fifth did whirl about The other four in wondrous motion. The third class of occult experience to which Shakespeare introduces us in his plays may be termed ironical presenti ment: 66 Before ill chances men are ever merry, But heaviness foreruns the good event." This mental attitude is the reverse of that which we have been discussing, and accordingly we find it exhibited in very different characters. Those characters are not without imagination, but it is unbalanced by reason. They project themselves into the future as in the former two classes, but without a mental grasp of the circumstances; or it may be that their reason is blinded by some false estimate of themselves or of others concerned. Thus it was with the powers of France before the battle of Agincourt : "Will it never be day!" cries the Dauphin. "I will trot to-morrow a mile, and my way will be paved with English faces." "Who will go hazard with me for twenty prisoners ?" demands Ramillies; and the constable of France echoes : "Would it were day! Alas, poor Harry of England! He longs not for |