whole world, totally different as they are, and
quite unknown to one another, in accord upon _this_ one point."[219]

Some supposed vestiges of a most interesting kind, of very ancient
Gallic or Celtic word-charms, have recently been brought before
archaeologists by the celebrated German philologist Grimm, and by Pictet
of Geneva. Marcellus, the private physician of the Roman Emperor
Theodosius, was a Gaul born in Aquitane, and hence, it is believed, was
intimately acquainted with the Gaulish or Celtic language of that
province. He left a work on quack medicines (_De Medicamentis
Empiricis_), written probably near the end of the fourth century. This
work contains, amongst other things, a number of word-charms, or
superstitious cure-formulas, that were, till lately, regarded--like
Cato's word-cure for fractures of the bones--as mere unmeaning
gibberish. Joseph Grimm and M. Pictet, however, think that they have
found in these word-charms of Marcellus, specimens of the Gaulish or
Celtic language several centuries older than any that were previously
known to exist--none of the earliest glosses used by Zeuss, in his
famous _Grammatica Celtica_, being probably earlier than the eighth or
ninth centuries. If the labours of Grimm and Pictet prove successful in
this curious field of labour, they will add another proof to the
prevalence of magical charms among the Celtic nations of antiquity, and
afford us additional confirmation of the ancient prevalence, as
described by Pliny, of a belief in the magical art among the Gaelic
inhabitants of France and Britain.[220]

The long catalogue of the medical superstitions and magical practices
originally pertaining to our Celtic forefathers, was no doubt from time
to time increased and swelled out in Britain by the addition of the
analogous medical superstitions and practices of the successive
Roman[221] and Teutonic [222] invaders and conquerors of our island. A
careful analysis would yet perhaps enable the archaeologist to separate
some of these classes of magical beliefs from each other; but many of
them had, perhaps, a common and long anterior origin. We know further
that, in its earlier centuries among us, the teachers of Christianity
added greatly to the number of existing medical superstitions, by
maintaining the efficacy, for example, of a visit to the cross of King
Edwin of Northumberland, for the cure of agues, etc.,--the marvellous
alleged recoveries worked by visiting the gra