A SUMMER TRIP. 71 



authority credibly informs us that the British Isles really 

 comprise no fewer than one thousand separate islands 

 and islets, without counting mere jutting rocks or isolated 

 pinnacles. Of these, perhaps some two dozen are situ- 

 ated in the Bristol Channel, mostly off the jagged South 

 Welsh coast ; while three of them the Steep Holm, the 

 Flat Holm, and Lundy Island may pretty fairly be 

 considered as belonging to the real English shore. 



Their very names are interesting, for the Holms were 

 so called by the Scandinavian pirates and still retain the 

 old Norse word for an island, which we meet again, for 

 instance, in Stockholm, the isle at the debouchure of the 

 Malaer Lake ; while Lundy shares the common termina- 

 tion of most other eyots round the English coast as in 

 Sheppey, Walney, Anglesey, Scilly, and Caldy. The 

 syllable in question is the original English form 

 of the word island, which ought etymologically to be 

 written ' iland ' ; and therefore Lundy ought to stand by 

 itself, as Sheppey and Anglesey always do, without 

 having a redundant and additional notification of its 

 insularity tacked on without rhyme or reason to its 

 name. But use and wont govern all these things : and 

 just as people who are ignorant of the good old word 

 ' mere ' have taken to talking pleonastically of Winder- 

 mere Lake, so all of us have taken to talking pleonastic- 

 ally of Lundy Island, It is only in the bigger cases of 

 Sheppey, Jersey, and Anglesey that we still keep to the 

 correct usage ; much as we always properly say West- 

 moreland and Cumberland without any 'shire,' as we 

 ought to do, while the people of Rutland are often 

 scandalised at hearing their little county wrongfully 

 described as Rutlandshire. 



