THE EDDYSTONE : FACTS AND FICTIONS. 
211 
almost if not quite the same colour, been cancelled with a line 
drawn through it. 
To any one who has seen and examined Smeaton's building the 
whole tale will appear, not only a fiction, but an impossibility. In 
fact, the history of Smeaton's lighthouse is quite devoid of any 
incidents such as are related of the former ones. 
The only note I have is that in 1762 Dr. Johnson was in 
Plymouth, and on that occasion "the Commissioner of the 
Dockyard paid him the compliment of ordering the yatclit to 
convey him and his friends to the Eddy-stone, to which they 
accordingly sailed. But the weather was so tempestuous that 
they could not land." 
As I have said, it was no defect in the lighthouse itself which led 
the Trinity Board to substitute the existing magnificent structure, 
but the discovery that (as indeed Smeaton had foreseen) by the 
action of the waves upon the rock itself, and especially through the 
existence of a hollow underneath the foundation, the lighthouse 
was in danger of being some day bodily overset. The events 
connected with the erection of the present building, and the 
eventual removal of all those portions of Smeaton's that could be 
taken to pieces to be erected over a new base upon the Hoe, are 
too fresh in our memories to need any remark from me. 
This removal, however, roused public attention and interest, 
which was followed up in the pages of our local Notes and Queries, 
the Western Antiquary, by various enquiries and suggestions 
respecting the etymology and signification of the name. 
The name Eddystone in its present form seems so simple as to 
carry its derivation and meaning upon its face ; but it was pointed 
out that no longer ago than 1842 it was spelled (locally) Edystone. 
This was the form used by Smeaton throughout his great work, 
The Narrative of the Building of the Edystone Lighthouse, pub- 
lished first in 1791, and re-issued in 1793 and 1813. It is also so 
spelled in the Act of Anne before mentioned. Further investiga- 
tion showed that it had also been spelled Eddi-, Edye-, Edie-, 
Edi-, Ede-, Ide-, and Idy-stone. 
These variations led some to conclude that the prefix did not 
bear the simple meaning we now attach to the word, but that it 
was a corruption from some Anglo-Saxon "personal name." The 
principal advocate of this view, besides bringing forward some of 
the variations of form I have mentioned, as arguments that the 
