investigation, and would amply repay any trouble or attention that
might be bestowed upon it. I allude to _Metrical Charms_, many
of which are still preserved, and, in spite of the corruptions they
have undergone in the course of centuries, would furnish curious and
valuable illustrations of the Mythological System on which they are
founded.

"Spirits of the flood and spirits of the hills found a
place in the mythology of Saxon England,"

says an able reviewer of Mr. Kemble's _Saxons in England_, in
_The Anthenæum_ (13th Jan. 1849); and he continues,


"The spells by which they were invoked, and the forms
by which their aid was compelled, linger, however, still
amongst us, although their names and powers have passed
into oblivion. In one of the Saxon spells which
Mr. Kemble has inserted in the Appendix, we at once
recognised a rhyme which we had heard an old woman
in our childhood use,--and in which many Saxon words
unintelligible to her were probably retained."

Who would not gladly recover this "old rhyme?"--I can say for
myself, that if these lines should ever meet the eye of the writer
of the passage I have quoted, I trust he will be induced to
communicate, in however fragmentary a shape, this curious addition
to our present scanty stories of mythological information.

While on the subject of _Charms and Spells_, I would ask those