430 
interest as illustrations of the mode of thinking 
and acting of past times, they become really valu- 
able to the philesophical physician, as throwing 
light on the natural history of diseases. The pre- 
scribers and practisers of such “ charms,” as well 
as the lookers-on, have all unquestionable evidence 
of the efficacy of the prescriptions, in a great many 
cases: that is to say, the diseases for which the 
charms are prescribed are cured; and, according 
to the mode of reasoning prevalent with pre- 
scribers, orthodox and heterodox, they must be 
cured by them,—post hoc ergo propter hoc. Unhap- 
pily for the scientific study of diseases, the uni- 
versal interference of Art in an active form renders 
it difficult to meet with pure specimens of corporeal 
maladies; and, consequently, it is often difficult to 
say whether it is nature or art that must be cre- 
dited for the event. This is a positive misfortune, 
in a scientific point of view. Now, as there can 
be no question as to the non-efliciency of charms 
in a material or physical point of view (their ac- 
tion through the imagination is a distinct and im- 
portant subject of inquiry), it follows that every 
disease getting well in the practice of the charmer, 
is curable and cured by Nature. A faithful list 
of such cases could not fail to be most useful to 
the scientific inquirer, and to the progress of truth; 
and it is therefore that I am desirous of calling 
the attention of your correspondents to the sub- 
ject. Asa general rule, it will be found that the 
diseases in which charms have obtained most fame 
as curative are those of long duration, not dan- 
gerous, yet not at all, or very slightly, benefited 
by ordinary medicines. In such cases, of course, 
there is not room for the display of an imaginary 
agency :— “ For,’ as Crabbe says, — and I hepe 
your medical readers will pardon the irreverence— 
« For Nature then has time to work her way; 
And doing nothing often has prevailed, 
‘When ten physicians have preseribed and failed.” 
‘The notice in your last Number respecting the 
cure of hooping-cough, is a capital example of 
what has just been stated; and I doubt not but 
many of your correspondents could supply nume- 
rous prescriptions equally scientific and equally 
effective. On a future occasion, I will myself 
furnish you with some; but as I have already 
trespassed so far on your space, I will conclude 
by naming a few diseases in which the charmers 
may be expected to charm most wisely :and well. 
They will all be found to come within the cate- 
gory of the diseases characterised above : — 
Epilepsy, St. Vitus’s Dance (Chorea), Hysteria, 
Toothache, Warts, Ague, Mild Skin-diseases, Tic 
Douloureux, Jaundice, Asthma, Bleeding from 
the Nose, St. Anthony’s Fire or The Rose (Ery- 
sipelas), King’s Evil (Serofula), Mumps, Rheu- 
matic Pains, &c., &c. EXMDEE. 
April 25. 1850. 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
[No. 27. 
Roasted Mouse. —I have often heard my father 
say, that when he had the measles, his nurse gave 
him a roasted mouse to cure him. Scorus. 
THE ANGLO-SAXON WoRD “ UNLZ=D.” 
A long etymological disquisition may seem a 
trifling matter; but what a clear insight into his- 
toric truth, inte the manners, the customs, and the 
possessions of people of former ages, is sometimes 
obtained by the accurate definition of even a single 
word. A pertinent instance will be found in the 
true etymon of Brytenwealda, given by Mr. Kem- 
ble in his chapter ‘On the Growth of the kingly 
Power.” (Saxons in Engl. B.11. ¢.1.) Upon this 
consideration I must rest for this somewhat lengthy 
investigation. 
The word UNLD, as far as we at present know, 
occurs only five times in Anglo-Saxon; three of 
which are in the legend of Andreas in the Vercelli 
MS., which legend was first printed, under the 
auspices of the Record Commission, by Mr. Thorpe; 
| but the Report to which the poetry of the Vercelli 
MS. was attached has, for reasons with which I 
am unacquainted, never been made public. In 
1840, James Grimm, “feeling (as Mr. Kemble 
says) that this was a wrong done to the world of 
letters at large,” published it at Cassel, together 
with the Legend of Elene, or the Finding of the 
Cross, with an Introduction and very copious 
notes. In 1844, it was printed for the Aelfric 
Society by Mr. Kemble, accompanied by a trans- 
lation, in which the passages are thus given : — 
Such was the people’s 
peaceless token, 
the suffering of the wretched.” 
1. 57-9. 
When they of savage spirits 
believed in the might.” 
1. 283-4. 
“Ge pind unlede We are rude, 
eanma sebohta. ‘of poor thoughts.” 
In the splendid fragment of “ Judith,” first pub- 
lished by Thwaites, and since collated with the 
MS., and printed by Mr. Thorpe in his Analecta | 
Anglo-Saxonica, the following passage occurs at |} 
p- 184., in the edition of 1834 :— 
*“zenim pa pone hedenan mannan 
peeyce be feaxe yinum, 
ceah hine rolmum, | 
pis hype peapd byrmeplice, | 
and pone bealorullan | 
liycum alebde, 
laSne mannan, 
ypa heo Sey unledan 
eadoye mihce 
pel xepealdan.” 
The fifth instance of the occurrence of the word | 
is in a passage cited by Wanley, Catal. p. 134. | 
“ Spyle pey ber rolcey 
FneoSoleay tacen, 
unledpa eapod- 
** ponne hie unladOpa 
earedum selypoon 
