THE EDDYSTONE LIGIITILOUSE. 81 
tribute of its thanks to the wise and beneficent men whose 
energy and perseverance have succeeded in lighting every head- 
land or estuary of our rugged coast? So completely has this 
been done, that in the dark and stormy night, almost as well 
as in the brightest day, the homeward-bound ship need not 
approach danger without receiving friendly warning, for her 
pathway is illuminated by gigantic fire-beacons so thickly set 
that when one fades to the sight a new one rises to the view. 
Among the numerous lighthouses with which the genius of 
humanity has encircled our native shores, the Eddystone, the 
Bell Rock, and the Skerryvore, are pre-eminent for the vast diffi- 
culties that had to be surmounted in their construction, situated 
as they are upon solitary rocks, exposed to the full fury of the 
insurgent waves; and should by some revolution all other monu- 
ments erected by man be swept away from the surface of our 
land, and these alone remain, they would suffice to testify to 
future ages that these islands were once inhabited by a highly 
civilised and energetic race, one well worthy to lay claim to the 
dominion of the seas. 
At the distance of about twelve milesand a half from Plymouth 
Sound, and intercepting, as it were, the entrance of the Channel, 
the Eddystone rocks had been for ages a perpetual menace to 
the mariner. The number of vessels wrecked on these perfidious 
shoals must have been terrible indeed, it being even now a com- 
mon thing in foggy weather for homeward-bound ships to make 
the Eddystone Lighthouse as the first point of Jand of Great 
Britain, so that in the night and nearly at high water, when the 
whole range of the rocks is covered, the most careful pilot might 
run his ship upon them, if nothing was placed there by way of 
warning. As the trade of Engiand increased, the number of 
fatal accidents naturally augmented, rendering it more and more 
desirable to crest the Eddystone with a tutelary beacon ; yet years 
elapsed before an architect appeared bold enough to undertake 
the task. At length, in 1696, Mr. Winstanley, a country gentle- 
man and amateur engineer, made the first attempt of raising a 
lighthouse on those sea-beaten rocks, but as he was possessed 
of more enterprise than solid knowledge, the structure he erected 
was deficient in every element of stability. Yet such was the 
presumption of the man that he was known to express a wish 
that the fiercest storm that ever blew might arise to test the 
