IT has not been from any discourtesy that I have not before noticed the second paper by Major Edye, which was printed in your magazine so long since as May, 1887 [see The Eddystone Lighthouse by Captain L Edye, 1887].

    Want of leisure prevented my taking up the subject at that time, and since then various reasons have rendered me desirous of not doing so until I had been able to pro­cure and tabulate some further facts relating to it.

    The time, however, seems to me to have now come, when I should at least endeavour to remove the misapprehensions of my meaning, into which Major Edye seems to have fallen. For these misapprehensions, my own want of perspicuity is probably responsible. Whether, or no, I can certainly heartily sympathise with Major Edye in the intro­ductory remarks of his second paper.

    I should certainly not have ventured to take part in this ''controversy" (if it may be so called) if I had not thought that in advocating the identity of the name of the reef, in its various forms, from Idystone, through Ideston, Edeston, Edistone, Edystone, Eddistone, to its present spelling Eddystone, I was putting forward a well-founded argument, and one that would eventually commend itself to the acceptance of all who would look carefully into the details given.

    Before venturing to submit my remarks to the consideration of your readers, I took care to ascertain, from competent experts in philological science, that all these various forms, might have been evolved from the original Anglo-Saxon or Norse, ida—an eddy or whirl­pool.

    It being thus clear that the Eddy of Eddystone might very possibly be nothing more then the simple word signifying a whirl or swirl of waters, and, as this supposition was not in any way of modern origin, it seems reasonable to contend that there is no need to seek for any other derivation. For my own part, I really cannot admit the analogy be­tween the cases of the place-names mentioned by Major Edye, both in his first and his second papers, and that of the Eddystone, because in all the instances given, and I believe in all that can be mentioned, they are such that a personal derivation of the names was quite probable. We can quite understand that any of these names may have arisen on ac­count of an original connection with the place, on the part of the person from whom the name has been derived; whether it were of residence, or of possession or both, or else of the occurrence at the place of some special event in which the person was concerned.

    But, in the case of the reef with whose name we are dealing, the latter is the only connection that one can conceive to be pos­sible.

    What event then other than a shipwreck or similar disaster can be supposed to have happened at the Eddystone?

    Is it likely that any one bearing such a name as could, in the lapse of time, have been corrupted through the various changes above noted, into the modern Eddy (stone), would for such a cause in those early times have had his name applied to the rock, unless he had been a person of very great importance indeed? And, if so, would the person and the circumstances be forgotten?

    Besides, if this were the case, is it probable that the personal name would have remained so attached, after the memory or tradition of the event had completely perished?

    The Panther rock or shoal in Plymouth Sound, has retained that appellation, which was given to it because one of His Majesty's ships, thus named, struck on it; but, if in the lapse of ages that circumstance should become forgotten, it is almost inconceivable that in the many variations and corruptions to which it would be then subjected, it should preserve through them all the same meaning. In regard to the probability of the name Eddystone having a "personal" derivation, it is important to note that although diligent search has been made, both personally and by means of enquiries through the columns of your contemporary Notes & Queries (to whose pages we naturally turn for assistance in such a case), I am unable to find that any isolated rock, reef, or uninhabitable island, in any way similar to the Eddystone reef, and like it, situated in the open sea, far from land; has on any part of our coasts, received a name which is undoubtedly de­rived from a "personal name." There are plenty of such rocks bearing names of Norse or similar origin, but they are, as I contend the Eddystone is, descriptive names, as true to­day, when we know their meaning, as at the time when the names must have been first given many centuries ago. Of course, I can­not absolutely prove a negative, but I have taken pains to ascertain if such do exist, and without success. It is no doubt true that the name Edy by itself, may be derived from the A.S. Eadig=Saint, happy, lucky, etc., and this might be combined with stan, to bear the meaning of the happy stone or the lucky stone, or with tun and thus mean the happy town or the blessed town, etc.; always supposing that the incident out of which the name arose happened in a situation where such appella­tions would or could have naturally arisen.

    But the very idea of happiness or good luck is about the last that could have any connection with such a place as the Eddystone reef, in the days when no lighthouse existed on it either to warn sailors of their danger in ap­proaching it, or to be a guide to them in shaping their course for Plymouth Haven or other harbours further up the channel. In those days it was a terror to mariners, and, as Smiles says, "they were so afraid of run­ning upon it unawares, that they entered the channel on a much more southerly parallel of latitude than they now do, and in their solicitude to avoid this danger they too fre­quently ran foul of one another and hence were often wrecked on the French coasts, and more particularly on the dangerous rocks which surround the islands of Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney." *

    Whatever names may exist in the A.S. Charters, I fail to see what possible con­nection these Charters can have with a reef like the Eddystone, which in those times was neither a residence nor a possession.

    It is not as if it was a fresh idea, that the rock is named from the eddies which are associated with it. On the contrary, I cannot find that any other explanation was even suggested until a writer in the Western Antiquary started the proposition that it might have been derived from a personal name—and this proposition was afterwards elaborated by Major Edye himself.

    Instead of this, Defoe in 1724, speaks of these rocks as being named "from their situation." A century and a quarter ago, al­though spelling the name of the rocks Edystone, Smeaton says, "they are supposed to have got this appellation from the great variety of contrary sets of the tide, or cur­rents amongst, and in the vicinity thereof," and, after explaining the reasons for the great irregularity of these currents, he proceeds "therefore, they may very properly be termed, as they are, the Edystone Rocks."

    Polwhele, Oulton, and others, following on Smeaton, give the same derivation, and Robert Mudie, Gaelic Professor at Inver­ness, in his Companion to Gilbert's New Map of England and Wales; in 1839, thus writes (p. 52), "The once dreaded and dreadful rock of the Eddystone, which literally means 'the stone of the reeling waves,' a truly descriptive appella­tion; lies about nine miles near the point where the strongest eddy of the bay holds conflict with the tide round the Lizard," etc.

    These were not men who were likely to be led away with superficial views of philology, or false ideas of analogy, based on mere phonetic similarity.

    If there were no eddies at the reef, and yet from the fact of the prefix Ede, Edi, or Edy having a similar sound to the ordinary word Eddy, the derivation had thereupon been as­sumed to have arisen from the supposed physical characteristic of the spot, there would be room to doubt the correctness of the as­sumption.

    But in this case everything fits. The eddies are there, there is no doubt about that, and the earliest forms of the prefix are Ide and Ede, both of which it is admitted would be likely changes from the Norse ida—an eddy. And while these and succeeding forms continued to be spelled in a manner etymologically cor­rect, the d into which the hard A.S. th had been changed, remained single.

    Major Edye quotes the opinion of Prof. Skeat (corroborating my previous contention) that the duplication of the d is "a matter of chronology," and also that the spelling with i or e, or even with y, "decides nothing." And here I wish to disclaim the supposition that I intended to advocate the "theory that the correct spelling of a local word is not to be found in the locality itself," but "is to be . . . sought for elsewhere."

    Etymologically the proper spelling of the word "eddy" is edie or edy, as I showed, the consonant has been doubled merely as a phonetic expedient to indicate that the pre­ceding vowel sound is short, just as hotter by the doubled consonant shows that the o is short, while in hotel it is long, so the modern form eddy shows that the pronunciation is ĕd-y and not ē-dy.

    In early times instances are common, where words now spelt with duplicated consonants were written with one only.

    From general sources I have notes before me of "paterne" for "pattern," "coment" for "comment," "tipling" for "tippling," "chalenged" for "challenged," "gobled" for "gobbled."

    These are only casual specimens, but the diary of Pentecost Barker of 1729-30 abounds with such forms. He uses "jugler" when we now spell it "juggler," "apetite" for "ap­petite," "fudled" for "fuddled," "paralel" for "parallel," etc., so there is little wonder that he should spell the name of the reef as "Edystone."

    Regarding the actual occurences of the form with two d's what I meant to have said was, that while locally that change was not gener­ally made till well on into the 19th century, yet that the same was going on in other parts less provincial in their character, from the 17th century.

    As to the pronunciation having remained the same during many centuries, of course, I do not presume, to speak authoritatively regarding times long past, but I can speak from personal knowledge of those who used the form Edystone, that under that mode of spelling, the first syllable was short and the word was pronunced Ed-y-stone and not E-dy-stone. For times further back, the fact that while some wrote it Edystone others at the same time spelled it Eddistone and Eddystone, as far back even as 1664, shows that the latter recognized the pronunciation to be the same as at present. Besides this by the laws of philological change involved in the alteration from ida to ide, idy, and ede, we are led to conclude that these forms Idiston, Idystone, and Edestone, began with a short syllable, and were respectively pronounced Id-i-ston, Id-y-stone, and Ed-e-stone. Con­sequently there is very little presumption in assuming that this was the character of the pronunciation all through.

    Canon Taylor in Words and Places, 1873, p. i, says:—
    "Local names . . . are never mere arbitrary sounds devoid of meaning.
    " The names of places are conservative of the more archaic forms of a living language and they often embalm for us the guise and fashion of speech in eras the most remote," and on p. 3, "these appellations have often, or they had at first, a descriptive import."

    A further difficulty in the way of supposing that the prefix was derived from any personal name, or any A.S. word like Eadig, etc., is the occurence of the name Eddystone in many places all over the world, besides the one in the English Channel.

    These can not possibly have been formed by corruption from an A.S. form whether personal or otherwise, and unless we regard them, as we must, as being named either from the special characteristics of the rocks, etc., so called, or in remembrance of the Eddystone of Old England, to which they bear more or less of resemblance, we must be at a loss to understand the existence of such names at all.

    We can, however, well see, how the mari­ners by whom they were discovered gave them a name which was descriptive in their own vernacular of the physical circumstances surrounding them, just as it is reasonable to presume that the earlier mariners when they met with the Eddystone of our locality and became acquainted with the causes of its dangerous character, gave it a name in their earlier tongue, signifying that it was pre-­eminently to them the "rock or stone of the eddies."

    In regard to the remark that I "produced no evidence to substantiate" my belief that the form of the name with two d's was found in the 17th century, I would say that in all I have written I have been careful not to take anything for granted, but have endeavoured, wherever it was possible to carry out the golden rule "Verify your references." In this case I spoke cautiously, because, although I believed the statement of my informant to be quite correct, I had not then been able to obtain corroboration.

    I have since done so, and find that the spelling is exactly as at present, Eddystone, the only error being that the date is 1693 and not as I was first told "about 1680.''

    I am rather surprised that Major Edye, in his careful search for authorities, has missed this one. It is Captain Grenville Collins', Great Britain's Coasting Pilot, dated London 1693.

    In one of the charts it is spelt as I have said, and in the sailing directions which form part of the work, the reef is thus spoken of: "The Eddystone lyeth south south-west from Plymouth Sound; the north-west part of it is above water at a high spring tyde, about six or seven foot high . . . . This rock lyeth from the Start west a little southerly, and from Ram Head south by west, keep without forty fathom water and you cannot come foul of the Eddystone."

    The same spelling occurs in later editions of the same work.

    Having thus justified my reference to this instance, I would venture to say, with all due respect, that it is a pity that Major Edye has not always been so careful to "verify references." Had he done so he would doubtless have found that the words he quoted from Camden, (but with such a scanty reference, that it was only after prolonged search that I was able to find it), are not at all assignable to the date of the edition he gave, viz., 1789.

    The spelling Ideston appears in that edition, not as a then current form, but as faithfully copied from Camden's own editions in Latin, of which I have quotations from those dated 1607 and 1586 which was his first edition. This is not an important case, but the quotation which Major Edye professes to give from Gay's Trivia, is a case where he has evidently taken his information at second-hand. Know­ing as I did, from a personal examination of the second edition—that of 1720—that the word was spelled there not only with two d's but with a y also; when I read his last paper, I could not possibly imagine from what edition he was quoting.

    It did not seem likely that the spelling would have been altered to the single d form, after the double d had been introduced, and I soon found by the kindness of the Editor, who specially examined his large collection of editions of Gay for me, that there was no known instance of a variation from the spelling Eddy-stone.

    When, however, I was looking recently at Gilpin's Observations on the Western parts of Eng­land, published in 1798, I found that he not only uses the form Edystone in his own description, but on pp. 222-3 he quotes the verse from Gay, with the alteration of the name from Eddystone to Edyston.

    Probably this was the source of Major Edye's citation of Gay as employing the one d, and he was deceived by the fact of Gilpin being either a careless copyist, or having intentionally altered what he was quoting.

    And now I must, in turn, confess, that I have been in the same way deceived by what purported to be a copy of a passage in the Plymouth Herald of June 18th, 1842.

    At the time I wrote, I had no opportunity of examining the file of that newspaper, but having just done so, I find that the original paragraph is headed "The Eddystone Light­houses" [sic] and proceeds: "Among the several objects of interest to be found in the im­mediate neighbourhood the Eddystone Light­house stands pre-eminent, etc."

    I had quoted from a printed document of the same date, containing besides, a description of the various buildings, in which the name is spelled Edystone, and I now find that the writer had introduced into the Herald paragraph his own spelling of the name, but copied liter­ally everything else in it. This explanation of course makes no change in the evidence for my contention, but to my mind rather strengthens it, for it shows that the writer of the description was so imbued with the form of spelling to which he had been accustomed, having been brought up in Plymouth from a child, that he used it, even when he supposed he was copying from the Herald.

    I am further strengthened in my former belief that the Edy lingered as a local form, long after the spelling had generally been made Eddy-stone, by the fact that in Brice's Grand Gazetteer, 1759, on page 478 he says, "Eddystone is a rock and was a most dan­gerous one situate in the English Channel, etc.;" while on page 1041 s.v. Plymouth, the writer says, "The famous lighthouse of Edystone fixt on a Rock in the Midst of the sea, etc.;" and later on in the article we have the paragraph, "Thus far of this Article was written by (a Native of the Place) the Rev. Mr. Payne lately deceas'd."

    Here we have a Plymouthian writing Edystone while another elsewhere uses the form Eddystone.

    I think, I have almost said enough to be able now "to claim to have proved that the second d has not been added during the 19th century," that is that it was often used before, but I have many more instances to adduce, which I trust will be sufficient to convince even Major Edye that the form Eddystone or Eddystone was more genuinely and generally spread than he has hitherto been able to admit.

    It will be noted that in some cases the same writer uses, or the same book contains, two or more forms.

    In 1623 Sir Wm. Monson in a letter speak­ing of the necessity of a lighthouse at the Lizard, writes, "I saye the like danger is in haylinge in w^th, the Boult in respect of the Edistone that lyeth more dangerously than the gulf, etc.;" and later on "which as I have said, is no more dangerous than the Eddistone."

    In 1664-5 Sir John Coryton and Mr. H. Brunker petitioned to be allowed to erect lighthouses at Scilly and the Eddystone. I have already mentioned that the name is spell­ed Eddystone in Captain Greenville Collins' Charts and Instructions of 1693, and in the next year 1694, a patent (6th William and Mary p. 15, No. 15, of which I have a transcript from the original in the Record Office) was granted to the Corporation of Trinity House empowering them to levy dues on all vessels passing the Eddystone to reimburse them the cost of the lighthouse which was to be erected on it. The name is so spelled throughout this somewhat lengthy document.

    In 1701-2 one Thos. Bateson or Baston petitions the king to be remunerated for the two "draughts of the Eddystone Lighthouse, that he had made by the king's order thro' Major Genl. Trelawney."

    The building of which these "draughts" were made did not long outlive the time of the draughtsman's petition, for in 1703 it perished in the great storm of November 27th, and of the damage wrought by this remarkable tem­pest, Defoe wrote an account entitled, The Storm. In the original edition of 1704, of which I have a copy before me, Defoe on p. 223 spells the name Eddystone, though on page 212 a note which is evidently written by a correspondent and not from his own pen, the word is spelled Edystone.

    The Trinity House Records contain letters of 1706, 1707, and 1709, relating to the Eddystone, G. Willdey's Map of Devon, 1710, has Eddistone, and in 1720 we have the same form in a Map by Moll, of that date, inserted in Burchett's Complete History of Naval Engage­ments, which form is also found in the index which refers the reader to a passage on p. 449 where the Secretary to the Admiralty himself spells the word Edistone.

    We might well expect that Moll would repeat his spelling in another map, published in 1724 (which also has a plan of the two light­houses named in each case Edystone); but Defoe in his Tour through Great Britain pub­lished in that year, not only spells it Eddistone in a map, but says that, "Upon the Rock which was called Eddystone from its situation, Mr. Winstanley undertook to build a Lighthouse, etc."

    In a map dated 1731 in the Modern History of the present state of All Nations, published in Dublin, the lighthouse is marked as the Eddistone, as it is in Rapin's edition 1736, and also in Badeslade & Toms' Maps of Devon and of England and Wales, dated 1742.

    One in the Universal Magazine of 1748 con­tinues the series, which proceeds with Bowen's Maps in Martin's Magazine of 1757, his Maps of Cornwall of 1759 and 1762, Kitchin's Maps of 1764, Donn's of 1765 (previously quoted), and Ellis's Cornwall 1768, all these naming the rock Eddistone.

    The Rev. Philip Morant in the course of his Description of the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, published 1739, says on p. 13, "They (the English ships) were scarce got as far as the Eddystone when they discovered about noon, the Spanish Fleet to the westward opposite Fowey in form of a half-moon, etc.;" and further on that they "in number nearly a hundred had recovered the wind of the Spaniards two leagues to the westward of Eddystone. I have already mentioned the London Magazine of 1755, and shall now add the Gentleman's Magazine of 1755 and 1757. In the former at p. 569 the burning of Rudyerd's structure is noted, though it is erroneously stated to have been built by Mr. Winstanley, and in the latter at p. 321 there is an account, culled from the XLIX. volume of the Philo­sophical Transactions of the "Case of a Man who died of the effects of the Fire at Eddystone Lighthouse."

    This brings me next to the date of Borlase's Natural History of Cornwall published in 1758, in the map of which we find Eddystone, I have already quoted Brice's Gazetteer of 1759, in the same year Benjamin Martin issued his Natural History of England and in Vol. I., p. 30, he thus writes: "Not far from Plymouth just mentioned is Eddy-stone, a very dangerous Rock to Sailors, but of late Years rendered of very great Use by Means of a stately Light­house built upon it."

    Under date 1762 Boswell inform us that, "The Commissioner of the Dockyard paid him (Johnson) the compliment of ordering the yatcht to convey him and his friends to the Eddystone, to which they accordingly sailed. But the weather was so tempestuous that they could not land." In the edition of Defoe's Tour, dated 1762, Eddystone is again the form used, and 1764 saw the publication of a Map by Kitchin, and of Mortimer's History of Eng­land, in both of which the now universal spell­ing is observed. Ellis too in 1768 issued a Map of Devon showing Eddystone, and in 1769 Borlase again gives it so in the map attached to his Antiquities of Cornwall.

    In the British Museum there is a document entitled, "Copy of a Letter from Mr. McKenzie to Secty. Stephen, dated at Plymouth, 12th June, 1774 (Add. MSS. 77891, No. 5 f 16 b)." Of this I possess a transcript, and Dr. Garnett kindly informs me that the document, though not Mr. McKenzie's original letter, is a copy of almost contemporary date.

    In this he notes the bearing of the shoal called the Hand-deeps, and mentions the Eddystone thus many times. The modern form occurs in Great Britain's Coasting Pilot of 1781, in England Delineated 1788, and in the Encyclopædia Britannica of 1797 we have the name given as Edystone Lighthouse, but under "Smeaton" his work is said to have been done on the "Eddystone." These and minor references I have placed in order in the accompanying chart [see below].

    By this time I think your readers must have been either tired of the subject entirely, or convinced that Edistone, Edystone, and Eddystone are but different forms of Eddy+stone, and that the simple derivation from the circumstances of the situation is that which will commend itself to those who are en­deavouring to satisfy themselves as to the etymology of its name.

    I will therefore only add that Major Edye is no doubt right about the orthography of the medal, for I find that Mr. Weston's original wording was: "Edystone resurgit, 1757," and it was most likely pointed out that the y would be incongruous. It only remains for me to conclude by gratefully acknowledg­ing the great assistance I have received from the following gentlemen:—Mr. J. Brent; N. Brushfield; Mr. E. H. Coleman; Dr. H. H. Drake; Dr. Garnett, of the British Museum; Mr. W. J. Hardy, of the Record Office; Rev. F. Jones, author of Life of Frobisher; Professor J. K. Laughton; Dr. J. B. Morrish; Dr. J. A. H. Murray; Mr. Edward Parfitt, Devon and Exeter Institution; Sir James A. Picton; Mr. B. Quaritch; Professor Skeat; Canon Isaac Taylor and others.

    Besides having sought their opinions and having generally found them confirmatory of my own views, a great number of the refer­ences I have given above have been furnished by these gentlemen, and where I have not been able to subsequently verify their quota­tions by personal inspection of the books and documents referred to, their names will, I believe, be sufficient guarantee of substantial accuracy.

    * Smiles's Lives of Englishmen. Vol. II., p. 16.

Extracted from The Western Antiquary; or, Note-book for Devon & Cornwall, Vol. VIII, No. 10, April 1889, pp181-184, and No. 11, May 1889, pp214-217.