Note 166 — ON THE CAT-STANE, KIRKLISTON.

See his Origin of the English, German, and Scandinavian Languages, p. 54. Some modern authorities have thought it philosophical to object to the whole story of Hengist and Horsa, on the alleged ground that these names are "equine" in their original meaning—"henges" and "hors" signifying stallion and horse in the old Saxon tongue. If the principles of historic criticism had no stronger reasons for clearing the story of the first Saxon settlement in Kent of its romantic and apocryphal superfluities, this argument would serve us badly. For some future American historian might, on a similar hypercritical ground, argue against the probability of Columbus, a Genoese, having discovered America, and carried thither (to use the language of his son Ferdinand) "the olive branch and oil of baptism across the ocean,"—of Drake and Hawkins having, in Queen Elizabeth's time, explored the West Indies, and sailed round the southernmost point of America,—of General Wolfe having taken Quebec,—or Lord Lyons being English ambassador to the United States in the eventful year 1860, on the ground that Colombo is actually the name of a dove in Italian, Drake and Hawkins only the appellations of birds, and Wolfe and Lyons the English names for two wild beasts.