An Indian Subscriber.
[Several of our historians, as Matthew of Westminster, Hector Boethius, Robert of Gloucester, the poet Harding, &c., have noticed this singular legend; but we believe the Rabbinical writers (as suggested by our Indian correspondent) have never been consulted respecting it. Sandford, in his valuable History of the Coronation of James II. (fol., 1687, p. 39.), has given some dates and names which will probably assist our correspondents in elucidating the origin of this far-famed relic. He says, "Jacob's stone, or The Fatal Marble Stone, is an oblong square, about twenty-two inches long, thirteen inches broad, and eleven inches deep, of a bluish steel-like colour, mixed with some veins of red; whereof history relates that it is the stone whereon the patriarch Jacob is said to have lain his head in the plain of Luza. That it was brought to Brigantia in the kingdom of Gallacia in Spain, in which place Gathal, King of Scots, sat on it as his throne. Thence it was brought into Ireland by Simon Brech, first King of Scots, about 700 years before Christ's time, and from thence into Scotland, by King Fergus, about 330 years before Christ. In the year 850 it was placed in the abbey of Scone in the sherifdom of Perth by King Kenneth, who caused it to be inclosed in a wooden chair (now called St. Edward's Chair), and this prophetical distich engraven on it:
'Ni fallat Fatum, Scoti hunc quocunque locatum
Inveniunt lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem.'
'If Fates go right, where'er this stone is found,
The Scots shall monarchs of that realm be crown'd.'
Which is the more remarkable by being fulfilled in the person of James I. of England." Calmet, however, states that the Mahometans profess to have this relic in their custody. He says, The Mahometans think that Jacob's stone was conveyed to the Temple of Jerusalem, and is still preserved in the mosque there, where the Temple formerly stood. They call it Al-sakra, or the stone of unction. The Cadi Gemaleddin, son of Vallel, writes, that passing through Jerusalem, in his way to Egypt, he saw Christian priests carrying glass phials full of wine over the Sakra, near which the Mussulmen had built their temple, which, for this reason, they call the Temple of the Stone. The wine which the Christian priests set upon the stone was no doubt designed for the celebration of mass there.">[
OLD MEREWORTH CASTLE, KENT.
Among your subscribers there are doubtless many collectors of topographical drawings and engravings. I shall feel specially obliged if any of them could find in their collections a view of old Mereworth Castle (as it stood prior to the comparatively modern erection of Lord Westmoreland), and furnish me with a long desiderated description of it. Local tradition represents it as having been a baronial castle rising from the middle of a small lake, like that of Leeds, though of smaller dimensions, with the parish church attached. I should rather conjecture it to have been an ancient moated manor-house, magnified, in the course of tradition, into a baronial castle and lake.