fth centuries, IN OC TUMULO JACIT VETTA F. VICTI. This the
common people call the _Cat-Stene_, whence I suspect the person's name
was _Getus_, of which name I find three Pictish kings; for the names
pronounced by the Britons with _G_, were written in Latin with _V_, as
we find by Gwyrtheyrn, Gwyrthefyr, and Gwythelyn, which were written in
Latin Vortigernus, Vortimerus, and Vitelinus."[134]

[Illustration: Fig. 15.]

Besides writing the preceding note to Dr. Rowland regarding the
Cat-stane, Mr. Lhwyd, at the time of his visit, took a sketch of the
inscription itself. In the _Philosophical Transactions_ for February
1700, this sketch of the Cat-stane inscription was, with eight others,
published by Dr. Musgrave, in a brief communication entitled, "An
Account of some Roman, French, and Irish Inscriptions and Antiquities,
lately found in Scotland and Ireland, by Mr. Edward Lhwyd, and
communicated to the publisher from Mr. John Hicks of Trewithier, in
Cornwall." The accompanying woodcut (Fig. 15) is an exact copy of Mr.
Lhwyd's sketch, as published in the _Philosophical Transactions_. In the
very brief communication accompanying it, the Cat-stane is shortly
described as "A Pictish monument near Edinburgh, IN OC TUMULO JACIT VETA
F. VICTI. This the common people call the Ket-stean; note that the
British names beginning with the letter Gw began in Latin with V [and
the three examples given by Lhwyd in his letter to Dr. Rowland follow].
So I suppose (it is added) this person's name was Gweth or Geth, of
which name were divers kings of the Picts, whence the vulgar name of
Ketstone."[135]

In the course of the last century, notices or readings of the Cat-stane
inscription, more or less similar to the account of it in the
_Philosophical Transactions_, were published by different writers, as
by Sir Robert Sibbald, in 1708,[136]--by Maitland, in 1753,[137]--by
Pennant, in his journey through Scotland in 1772,[138]--and by Gough, in
1789, in the third volume of his edition of Camden's _Britannia_.[139]

All the four authors whom I have quoted agree as to the reading of the
inscription, and give the two names mentioned in it, as VETTA and VICTI.
But in printing the first of these names, VETTA, Maitland and Pennant,
following perhaps the text in the _Philosophical Transactions_,
carelessly spell it with a single instead of a double T; and Gough makes
the first vowel in VICTI an E instead of an I. Sir Robert Sibbald gives
as a K th