91 



Sicily adopted the Italian language, and became absorbed 

 into the Italian people. 



It appears certain, then, that the settlement of the Saxons 

 in England was not so much a conquest as a re-peopling of 

 the country. The origin and early history of every people 

 is a subject always dear and sacred to their descendants, 

 but out of this very reverence arise the greatest difficulties 

 in the ascertainment of the truth. Legend and myth and 

 fable have thrown their mystic colouring over the simple 

 basis of reality, whether the subject illustrated be the ex- 

 ploits of Hercules and Theseus in Greece, the wanderings 

 of Eneas to the shores of Italy, or the landing of Hengist 

 and Horsa on the coast of Kent. 



Early legends and traditions, however, are not the only 

 lights by which we are enabled to trace our way through 

 the dim obscurity of the past. Other sources of information 

 more trustworthy, so far as they extend, may be discovered 

 by those who will search for them, in the laws and institu- 

 tions, the manners and customs, the language and nomen- 

 clature, which connect, link by link, the past with the 

 present, and extend in a long unbroken chain back from 

 the 19th to the 5th century, and even beyond. The 

 wonderful results produced by Niebuhr, in his illustrations 

 of the history of Rome, show what may be accomplished in 

 this direction by an intelligent and sagacious mind diligently 

 searching for the truth. The thorougli application of similar 

 principles to our earliest Saxon history, is yet a desideratum 

 in our literature. Something has, however, been done to 

 indicate the value of the rich vein which stiQ remains to 

 be explored. Sir E. Palgrave, in his "Eise and Progress 

 of the English Commonwealth," has led the way ; and, 

 more recently, Mr. John Mitchell Kemble, in his very 

 valuable work, "The Saxons in England," has made a 

 prodigious advance beyond all which had previously been 

 effected, towards the^ illustration of our early Saxon insti- 



