The bird of dawning singeth all night long;

And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,

The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,

No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallowed and so gracious is the time."

Horatio suggests an idea which is at the root of some of the most bloodcurdling of our modern ghost stories when he says to Hamlet :

“What if it tempt you toward the flood, my lord,

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff That beetles o'er its base into the sea, And there assume some other horrible form

That might deprive your sovereignty

of reason

And draw you into madness."

When Hamlet, later in the play, is meditating on the appearance and the message of the Ghost, he gives utterance to a thought which is as old as Euripedes :

"The spirit that I have seen May be the devil: and the devil hath power

To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps

Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is every potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me.'

To Dr. Churton Collins we are indebted for the information that in the tragedy of "Electra" Orestes expresses exactly the same doubt under very similar circum

stances: "But was it not some demon in the likeness of a god enjoined it?" (i.e., the revenge for the murder by his mother, Clytemnestra, of his father, Agamemnon). We are also reminded of Bacon's suggestive quotation in reference to the chief of evil spirits, "For we are not ignorant of his stratagems."

In the various editions of the play, even up till the folio of 1623, no essential difference is made, as has been said, in the character of the Ghost, utterly different as the whole conception of it is from the other visions of a similar kind. It fitted the time and the subject, and would not appear impossible to the audience. So grand is the general effect that even in our own day we view the disembodied - spirit as an integral part of the play.

Hamlet with the Ghost left out would be an anomaly second only to the omission of the hero himself.

In the play of "Richard III." we follow that king's career of guilt through the first four acts. Before the opening scene he had already joined in the murder of the young prince, Edward of Lancaster, and slain the mild Sixth Henry with his own hand.

Fortune herself seemed to favour him in the early death of his brother, Edward IV., but he made haste to anticipate the event by clearing his brother Clarence from his path. The son and brother of the widowed queen, with Sir Thomas Vaughan, were next sent to the block on a pretended charge of treason, and were soon followed by the too loyal Hastings.

But the dastardly crime the latter had refused to share in was carried out by other tools of Richard, now crowned king, and the brave young sons of Edward IV. were, by his order, smothered in the tower.

Even now the bloody record was not complete. His own queen was hastened to her doom to make way for a more convenient bride, and, lastly, the Duke of Buckingham, who had helped him to the throne, was sent to execution without even the semblance of a trial.

In the fifth act we see his sins recoiling on his head. A rival claimant crosses the Channel to seize the throne, and many of his nobles forsake his standard to join Henry of Richmond.

comes !

Then the crisis