THE EDDYSTONE LIGHTHOUSE. 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 Eock, 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 miles and 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 land 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 England 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 1 696, Mr. Winstanley, a country gentle- 

 man and amateur engineer, made the first attempt of raising a 

 Jighthouse on those sea-beaten rocks, but as he was possessed 

 of more enterprise thaD 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 



