Set it up for a pillar, and poured oil, &c.— The antiquity of this custom (of which we shall find frequent mention) is very evident from this place: he set up the pillar to preserve the memory of the vision, and he poured oil upon it, to consecrate it to God, and as a monument of his favour. See Dr. Jackson's Treatise of the Original of Unbelief, c. 35. It might perhaps be esteemed an omission, were we not to observe, that this stone was held in great veneration by the Jews in after-times, and was translated to Jerusalem. And, according to vulgar tradition, this is the stone on which the inauguration of the kings of Scotland was performed, in which the people placed a kind of fatality, and had engraven on it this distich:
Ni fallat fatum, Scoti, quocunque locatum Invenient lapidem, regnare tenentur ibidem.
"Or fate's deceived, or Heav'n decrees in vain, Or where they find this stone the Scots shall reign."
It had been brought out of Spain into Ireland, afterwards out of Ireland into Argyleshire, and Edward I. caused it to be conveyed to Westminster.