on bringing it to
England.

Shakspeare's RICHARD III. inquires--

"Is the _Chair_ empty? Is the Sword unswayed?
Is the King dead? The empire unpossessed?
What heir of York is there alive but We?"

And the Earl of Richmond describes him, in admirable allusion to the
foregoing facts, as

"A base foul _stone_, made precious by the foil
Of England's chair, where he is falsely set[9]."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: See Toland; Sir J. Ware's Antiq. of Ireland, vol. ii. pp.
10, 124, &c.]

[Footnote 2: Called also by the Irish Cloch na cinea[.m]na, or, the Stone
of Fortune.]

[Footnote 3: History of the Druids, p. 104.]

[Footnote 4: Chron. of Scotland, lib. i. cap. 2.]

[Footnote 5: P. 54.]

[Footnote 6: Judges ix. 6.]

[Footnote 7: 2 Kings, xi. 12, 14.]

[Footnote 8: Taylor's Glory of Regality, p. 31.]

[Footnote 9: Richard III.]

No. 2. _Of the Crowns._

We, can only speak to the growth and antiquity of their present
"fashion," none of those now used being of older date than the reign of
Charles II. This monarch issued a commission for the "remakeing such
royall ornaments and regalia" as the rebellious Parliament of his
father had destroyed[10], in which "the old names and fashions" were
directed to be carefully sought after and retained[11]. Upon this
authority, we still have the national crown with which our monarchs are
actually invested called St. EDWARD'S, although the Great Seal of the
Confessor exhibits him wearing a crown of a very different shape.

Whether the parent of our present crowns were the Eastern fillet, in the
tying on which there was great ceremony, according to Selden,--the Roman
or Grecian wreath, a "corruptible crown" of laurel, olive, or bay,--or
the Jewish diadem of gold,--we shall leave to antiquarian research.

"This high imperial type of [England's] glory"

has slowly advanced, like the monarchy itself, to its present commanding
size and brilliant appearance. From the coins and seals of the
respective periods, several of our Anglo-Saxon princes appear to have
worn only a fillet of pearl, and others a radiated diadem, with a
crescent in front. AEthelstan's crown was of a more regular shape,
resembling a modern earl's coronet. On king Alfred's there was the
singular addition of "two little bells;" and the identical crown worn by
this prince seems to have been long preserved at Westminster, if it were
not the same which is described in the Parliamentary Invento