and his Hog 130

* * * * *

POETS AND SUPERSTITION.

CHAPTER XVI.

Prophetic Verse--The Bardi--Bards maintained by Noblemen--Queen
Elizabeth and the Bards--Effects of Prophetic Sayings and of
Pipe Music--Messages to another World--Voices of Deceased Friends
heard in the Gale--Human Forms in the Clouds--Evenings in the
Highlands--Michael Scott--Constant Work for Evil Spirits--Stemming the
Tweed--How the Eildon Hills were formed--Ropes of Sand--Scott and his
Magic Books buried at Melrose--Ossianic Poems--Stories by Bards 150

CHAPTER XVII.

Shakspeare--An Outline of his Composition--"The Tempest"--Miranda
beseeching Prospero to allay the Wild Waters--Ariel's Readiness
to serve his Master--The Witch Sycorax--Caliban's Evil Wish--Neptune
chased--"Midsummer Night's Dream"--Exploits of a Fairy--Doings of
Puck--Titania and her Attendants--Ghosts and
Spirits--Song--"Macbeth"--Weird Sisters--Macbeth's Doom--Witches'
Caldron--Macbeth admonished by Spirits--"Antony and
Cleopatra"--Dreadful Apparition--King's Death avenged 161

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Poet Gay--The "Spell"--Hobnelia--Lubberkin--Spells resorted
to--Valentine Day--Ladybird sent on a Message of Love--Virtue of
United Garters--Gipsies' Warnings--Knives sever Love--Story of
Boccaccio--Apparition of a Deceased Lover--Poems by Burns--"Address
to the Deil"--"Tam o' Shanter" 173

CHAPTER XIX.

Sir Walter Scott--His Belief in Superstition--How his Tales of Fiction
are composed--A Town-Clerk frightened by an Apparition--A Ghost that
did not understand Erse, but could communicate in Latin--Lovel and
Edie Ochiltree--Discovery of Hidden Treasure--"Rob Roy"--Fairies'
Caverns--Supposed Apparition in the Trossachs--Elfin People at the
Firth of Forth--A Minister taken away by Fairies--Dame Glendinning's
Tale--Lines from "Marmion"--A Fairy Knight--Mysterious Steed 187

CHAPTER XX.

Lord Byron taught Superstition--Byron and the Maid in Green--Bridge of
Balgonie--Byron's Fear to ride over it--His Belief in Unlucky Days and
Presentiments--Socrates's Demon--Monk Lewis's Monitor--Napoleon's
Warnings--A Sorrowful Tale--Byron's Fortune told by a Sibyl--Hebrew
Camyo--Abracadabra--Loch-na-Garr--Oscar of Alva--Byron's last
Instructions 197

CHAPTER XXI.

Tale by Hogg, th