"Let clouds rest on the hills, spirits fly, and travellers fear. Let the winds of the woods arise, the sounding storms descend. Roar streams, and windows flap, and green-winged meteors fly! Let the pale moon, from behind the hills, enclose her head in clouds! Night is alike to me, blue, stormy, or gloomy the sky. Night flies before the beam when it is poured on the hill. The young day returns from his clouds, but we return no more.... Raise the song, and strike the harp; send round the shells of joy. Suspend a hundred tapers on high. Maids and youths, begin to dance. Let some grey bard be near me to tell the deeds of other times, of kings renowned in our land, of chiefs we behold no more. Thus let the night pass until morning shall appear on our hills. Then let the bow be at hand, the dogs, the youths of the chase. We shall ascend the hill with day, and awake the deer." From the foregoing, we obtain a glimpse of the superstitions and customs of remote ages. Greek mythology is confessedly the creation of poets; and to the bards of our own country we are indebted for some of our strangest fictions. Fletcher of Saltoun must have been fully aware of the poetic influence; for he expressed himself as willing to let any one who pleased make the laws, if he were permitted to compose the national ballads. CHAPTER XVII. Shakspeare--An Outline of his Composition--"The Tempest"--Ship at Sea in a Storm--Miranda beseeching Prospero to allay the Wild Waters--Ariel's Readiness to serve his Master--The Witch Sycorax--Ariel kept in a Cloven Pine twelve years--Caliban's Evil Wish--Mischief by Ariel--Neptune chased--Charmed Circle--Miracles--"Midsummer Night's Dream"--Exploits of a Fairy--Doings of Puck--Charmed Flower--Titania and her Attendants--Ghosts and Spirits--Song--"Macbeth"--Weird Sisters--Hecate and the Witches--Magic Arts--Macbeth's Doom--Witches' Caldron--Macbeth admonished by Spirits--Eight Kings and Banquo's Spirit--Noblemen warned by a Spirit--"Antony and Cleopatra"--Dreadful Apparition--King's Death avenged. Shakspeare, the immortal English poet, born in the year 1564, has assisted in no small degree to spread the knowledge of superstition. So opportunely do his works come to support our statements, that we are induced to give, in prose and verse, an outline of certain portions of his compositions touching the many mysterious subjects on which he wrote.