e._ the fruitful plains country.) The Greeks say the island was
named from a companion of Hercules, who, dying from the bite of a
serpent, was buried there. It was so called, because a strong current
is there first felt by the mariner coming from the east, _za cing
thus_, current, strong, first."

We really find some difficulty in believing that it is not Swift's _Essay
on the Antiquity of the English Language_ that we have before us.

"My present attempt is to assert the antiquity of our English tongue,
which, as I shall undertake to prove by invincible arguments, hath
varied very little for these two thousand six hundred and thirty-four
years past. And my proof shall be drawn from etymology, wherein I
shall use my matter much better than Skinner, Verstegan, Cambden, and
many other superficial pretenders have done; for I will put no force
upon the words, nor desire any more favour than to allow for the
usual accidents of composition, or the avoiding a _cacophonia_.

"I will begin with the Grecians, among whom the most ancient are the
Greek leaders on both sides at the siege of Troy. For it is plain,
from Homer, that the Trojans spoke Greek, as well as the Grecians. Of
these latter _Achilles_ was the most valiant. This hero was of a
restless, unquiet nature, and therefore, as Guy of Warwick was called
a _Kill-care_, and another terrible man a _Kill-Devil_, so this
general was called a _Kill-Ease_, or destroyer of ease, and at length
by corruption _Achilles_.

"Hector, on the other side, was the bravest among the Trojans. He had
destroyed so many of the Greeks by _hacking_ and _tearing_ them, that
his soldiers, when they saw him fighting, would cry out, 'Now the
enemy will be _hackt_--now he will be _tore_.' At last, by putting
both words together, the appellation was given to their leader under
the name of _Hack-tore_, and, for the more commodious sounding,
_Hector_.

"The next I shall mention is _Andromache_, the famous wife of Hector.
Her father was a Scottish gentleman of a noble family still
subsisting in that ancient kingdom; but being a foreigner in Troy, to
which city he led some of his countrymen in the defence of Priam, as
_Dictys Cretensis_ learnedly observes, Hector fell in love with his
daughter, and the father's name was _Andrew Mackay_. The