89 
would-be instructors of tlie people who can assert that the 
smoke hanging over our land and the reflection from the 
lights by night, are to bring to mind the pillar of fire by night 
and of cloud by day — deserves a measure of reprobation which 
it is foreign to my purpose to bestow. 
One of the arguments brought forward to prove our identi- 
fication with the ten tribes I will dwell upon a little, since it 
furnishes a suitable introduction to my remarks on the antiqui- 
ties of Britain. It is this, that “We possess Jacob's stone. 
This stone the author of forty-seven identifications calls the 
Signet-ring of the Almighty, and says it was the chief corner- 
stone of the Temple, and was secured by Jeremiah and taken 
by him to Ireland, and finally placed in Westminster Abbey 
and deposited under the seat of the Coronation Chair." 
This stone is indeed a very remarkable one. We are assured 
by Jewish tradition that it consists of several stones, which, 
being emulous of the honour, rolled themselves into one ; in 
proof of which the account in Genesis is referred to, that Jacob 
“ took of the stones (plural) of that place and put them for his 
pillows;" and again, Jacob took “the stone (singular) that he 
had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured 
oil upon it." 
Being thus a miraculous stone from the beginning, no 
wonder that it was an oracle. It w T as brought into Ireland by 
Simon Brech, the first king of the Scots, 70 years B.C.* 370 
years afterwards it was transferred into Scotland by King 
Fergus, and in the year 850 was removed by King Kenneth 
(who subdued the Piets) to the Abbey of Scone, and destined for 
the coronation of kings. At length Edward I. of England, the 
conqueror of the Scots, having led into captivity John Baliol, 
their king, possessed himself of this stone, and placed it as 
an offering to the Almighty in the year 1297. Much more 
may be found about this stone inKeysler and also inFergusson.f 
But the unfortunate thing for our theorists is, that this stone 
does not promise rule to the Anglo-Saxons, but to the Scoti, 
or native Irish, X the “ Canaanites " of the same writers: ac- 
cording to the oracular declaration: 
“ Ni fallit fatum, Scoti quocunque locatum 
Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem. ”§ 
The stone no longer either groans or rejoices according to 
the character of the occupant of the throne, but it may be 
* Keysler, p. 25. t Rude Stone Monuments, pp. 382, 439. 
+ See Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography. 
§ Keysler, p. 26. 
VOL. XIV. 
H 
