a village of Scotland, now chiefly remarkable for being the place where the kings were anciently crowned. W. Long. 3. 10. N. Lat. 56. 28. Here was once an abbey of great antiquity, which was burnt by the reformers at Dundee. Kenneth II. upon his conquest of the Picts in the ninth century, having made Scone his principal residence, delivered his laws, called the Macalpine laws, from a tumulus, named the Mote Hill of Scone. The old palace was begun by the earl of Gowrie; but was completed by Sir David Murray of Gospatric, the favourite of King James VI., to whom that monarch had granted it; and the new possessor, in gratitude to his benefactor, put up the king's arms in several parts of the house. It was built around two courts. The dining room was large and handsome; and had an ancient and magnificent chimney-piece, and the king's arms, with this motto:

Nobis hæc invicta miserunt centum sex proavis.

Beneath were the Murray arms. In the drawing room was some good old tapestry, with an excellent figure of Mercury. In a small bed-chamber was a medley scripture-piece in needle-work, with a border of animals, said to be the work of Queen Mary during her confinement in Loch Leven castle. The gallery was about 155 feet long, the top arched, divided into compartments filled with paintings in water-colours. The pieces represented were various kinds of huntings; that of Nimrod, and King James and his train, appear in every piece. But the whole of this building we believe has been demolished, and a most magnificent pile erected in its place by the earl of Mansfield, who is hereditary keeper. Till the destruction of the abbey, the kings of Scotland were crowned here, sitting in the famous wooden chair which Edward I. transported to Westminster abbey, to the great mortification of the Scots, who looked upon it as a kind of palladium. Charles II. before the battle of Worcester, was crowned in the chapel at Scone. The old pretender resided for some time at Scone in 1715; and his son paid it a visit in 1745.