_Unde derivatur Stonehenge_ (Vol. iv., p. 57.).--Your correspondent P.
P. proposes to interpret this word, _horse-stones_, from _hengst_, the
Saxon for a horse; and to understand thereby large stones, as the words
_horse-chesnut_, _horse-daisy_, _horse-mushroom_, &c., mean large ones.
But, if he had duly considered the arguments contained in Mr. Herbert's
_Cyclops Christianus_, pp. 162-4., he would have seen the necessity of
showing, that in Anglo-Saxon and English the description can follow, in
composition, the thing described; which it seems it can do in neither.
In support of his stone-horse, he should have produced a chesnut-horse
in the vegetable sense; a daisy-horse, or a mushroom-horse. Till he does
that, the grammatical canon appealed to by that author, will remain in
as full force against the stone-horse as against the stone-hanging.