THE SUPERNATURAL IN SHAKESPEARE.

I.

PRESENTIMENTS.

There has always been in the human heart a strong desire to peer beyond the boundaries of human existence, and to obtain a glimpse of that mysterious something which, although hidden from the senses, seems to vibrate in harmony with some secret chord within.

From before the day when King Saul of Israel sought help of the Witch of Endor in order to read the future, the supernatural has never ceased to have an attraction for the mass of humanity; and, far from having outgrown this curiosity,

we of the present day turn upon it the light of organised inquiry, and give to ghost-lore the dignity of a science.

It is evident that Shakespeare shared this interest with his fellow men in a degree proportioned to his genius. In his plays he introduces us to the awful abode of ghosts, the exquisite world of fairies, the unseen but active sphere of nymphs and sprites, and the weird conclaves of witches with a realism that makes us forget to regard them as mere creatures of the imagination, while they remain, nevertheless, quite distinct from the grosser world of material existence.

Oberon, Titania, Puck, Ariel, and even little Peaseblossom, who does not feel that the realms of the unknown are the richer for these familiar and lovable spirits?

Such apparitions appear only in a limited number of the dramas, but through almost the whole of the Shakespeare plays a subtle breath of metaphysics may be apprehended in the form of dreams and presentiments, and it is in connection Iwith these that I would venture in this paper to suggest a few thoughts.

A presentiment may be superficially defined as an instinctive conviction that something, good or bad as the case may be, is going to happen. This conviction takes possession of the mind without any apparent reason, but there may have been events in the past life or elements in the character of persons concerned that suggest a coming crisis.

In the words of Shakespeare himself :

A 2

"There is a history in all men's lives Figuring the nature of the times deceased,

The which observed, a man may prophesy

With a near aim, of the main chance

of things

As yet not come to life."

(2 Henry IV., III., I.).

Under certain conditions this process may take place unconsciously within the brain, resulting in a vague premonition of coming good or evil, those conditions being an intellect keen enough to see below the surface, an imagination capable of projecting itself into the future, a temperament, either by nature or force of circumstances, more introspective than energetic. Such, in fact, are the attributes of the persons in Shakespeare who have