English, etc., Language and
Nation_, p. 52) Maerlant in his Chronicle as doubtful whether to call
Hengist a Frisian or a Saxon.]

[Footnote 166: 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.]

[Footnote 167: See Thorpe's edition of Beowulf and other Anglo-Saxon
Poems, p. 219, line 45.]

[Footnote 168: _Monumenta Historica_, p. 623.]

[Footnote 169: _Ib._, p. 659.]

[Footnote 170: _Ib._, p. 544.]

[Footnote 171: _Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum_, lib. i. cap.
15, p. 34 of Mr. Stevenson's edition. In some editions of Bede's
_History_ (as in Dr. Giles' Translation, for example) the name of Vitta
is carelessly omitted, as a word apparently of no moment. Such a
discussion as the present shows how wrong it is to tamper with the texts
of such old authors.]

[Footnote 172: See these names in page 414 of Stevenson's edition of the
_Historia Ecclesiastica_.]

[Footnote 173: _Monumenta Historica Britt._, preface, p. 82.]

[Footnote 174: "Ethelwerdi Chronicorum," lib. ii. c. 2, in _Monumenta
Historica_, p. 505.]

[Footnote 175: _Ibid._ lib. i. p. 502 of _Monumenta Historica_.]

[Footnote 176: The historical personage and leader Woden is represented
in all these genealogies as having lived four generations, or from 100
to