."

In "King Lear" (iii. 2) the Fool says

"I'll speak a prophecy ere I go:
When priests are more in word than matter;
When brewers mar their malt with water;
When nobles are their tailors' tutors;
No heretics burn'd, but wenches' suitors;
When every case in law is right;
No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;
When slanders do not live in tongues.
Nor cutpurses come not to throngs;
When usurers tell their gold i' the field;
And bawds and whores do churches build;--
Then shall the realm of Albion
Come to great confusion:
Then comes the time, who lives to see't,
That going shall be us'd with feet.
This prophecy Merlin shall make; for I live before his time."

This witty satire was probably against the prophecies attributed to
Merlin, which were then prevalent among the people.[955]

[955] See Kelly's "Notices Illustrative of the Drama and Other
Amusements at Leicester," 1865, pp. 116, 118.

Formerly, too, prophecies of apparent impossibilities were common in
Scotland; such as the removal of one place to another. So in "Macbeth"
(iv. 1), the apparition says:

"Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be, until
Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him."

_Portents and Prodigies._ In years gone the belief in supernatural
occurrences was a common article of faith; and our ancestors made use of
every opportunity to prove the truth of this superstitious belief. The
most usual monitions of this kind were, "lamentings heard in the air;
shakings and tremblings of the earth; sudden gloom at noon-day; the
appearance of meteors; the shooting of stars; eclipses of the sun and
moon; the moon of a bloody hue; the shrieking of owls; the croaking of
ravens; the shrilling of crickets; night-howlings of dogs; the
death-watch; the chattering of pies; wild neighing of horses; blood
dropping from the nose; winding-sheets; strange and fearful noises,
etc.," many of which Shakespeare has used, introducing them as the
precursors of murder, sudden death, disasters, and superhuman
events.[956] Thus in "Richard II." (ii. 4), the following prodigies are
selected as the forerunners of the death or fall of kings:

"'Tis thought, the king is dead: we will not stay.
The ba