‎ (Hab. ii. 11.)—which, however, is not the case,—some slender support might have been thereby afforded to Mr. Margoliouth's argument; but as he admits that our Lord did not speak in the Greek tongue, such argument falls to the ground as void of all probability.

T. J. Buckton.

Lichfield.

WHITTINGTON'S STONE.

(Vol. ix., p. 397.)

The disappearance of this celebrated memorial of a questionable legend, seems to have been satisfactorily accounted for. The newspapers inform us that it has been taken to a mason's yard for the purpose of reparation.

Those who lament the removal of the stone on which, as they imagine, the runaway apprentice sat listening to the bells of Cheap, will perhaps be surprised to hear that the object of their regret is at least the third of the stones which have successively stood upon the spot long since the days of Whittington.

1. In a learned and interesting paper communicated to the pages of Sylvanus Urban (G. M. Dec. 1852) by T. E. T. (a well-known and respected local antiquary, who will yet, it is sincerely hoped, enrich our libraries with a work on the ancient history of the northern suburbs, a task for which he is pre-eminently qualified), it is shown that in all probability the site in question was once occupied by a wayside cross, belonging to the formerly adjacent lazar-house and chapel of St. Anthony. A certain engraving of 1776, mentioned by Mr. T., and which is now before me, represents a small obelisk or pyramid standing upon a square base, and surmounted by a cross, apparently of iron. The stone (popularly regarded as the original) was removed in 1795 by "one S——," the surveyor of the roads. Having been broken, or as another account states, sawn in two, the halves were placed as curb-stones against the posts on each side of Queen's Head Lane in the Lower Street. (Nelson's Hist. of Islington, 1811, p. 102.; Gent. Mag., Sept. and Oct. 1824, pp. 200. 290.; Lewis's Hist. of Islington, 1841, p. 286.) In Adams's Picturesque Guide to the Environs of London, by E. L. Blanchard (a recent but dateless little work, which I chanced to open at a book-stall a day or two ago), the present Queen's Head tavern in the Lower Street is mentioned as containing certain relics of its predecessor, "with the real Whittington stone (it is said) for a threshold."

2. Shortly after the removal of this supposed "original," a new memorial was erected, with the inscription "Whittington's Stone." This was, for some cause, removed by order of the churchwardens in May, 1821.