422 



"85, Lower Camden- street, Dublin, 

 December 3, 1849. 



" Sir, — Had 1 been aware of your intention to notice the 

 stone which formed the subject of your interesting paper read 

 before the Academy on Friday evening last, it would have 

 given me great pleasure to have afforded you information re- 

 lative to its history, and the circumstances which induced me 

 to have it forwarded from Navan to Dublin. The stone, 

 which appears to have formed a portion of the market cross of 

 Navan, had been removed from its original place, wherever 

 that was, and was used as a building stone in a comparatively 

 modern wall connected with a miserable back lane, branching 

 from the street called Trim Gate, Navan. Upon removing 

 the stone from its position in the wall, for the purpose of 

 drawing it, I found that it had formed a portion of the shaft 

 of an old cross, and as the inscriptions upon its sides contained 

 names of considerable historical interest, I begged the frag- 

 ment from the owner of the wall in which it had been, and 

 caused it to be removed to the rooms which I then occupied 

 in Navan. I subsequently learned that two similar stones, 

 which had evidently formed portions of the same cross were 

 known to exist. They are used as supports for casks in a 

 public house, in Trim Gate, Navan, and are sculptured and 

 inscribed. I used every endeavour to be allowed to make 

 drawings of them, and even offered to pay for any trouble 

 caused in removing the casks, but was at first flatly, and at 

 length insolently refused. Under these circumstances, and 

 believing that, were I to leave the stone which 1 had already 

 secured in Navan, it would be lost or broken up, or perhaps 

 thrown into the Blackwater, as at least one monument of "the 

 Novan"has been, I caused it to be removed to the Academy, 

 as the best place for its preservation which I could think of. 



" I remain, &c. &c., 



" W. F. Wakeman. 

 " To Sir William Betham, Knight." 



