At the mouth of the Bristol Channel, off the pleasant western English shore, fighting as it were with the long white waves of the Atlantic, and with its lighthouse warning the mariner to give it ample range, stands the lonely little island of Lundy, between Devon on the south and the coast of Wales on the north; while from the island’s granite cliffs, looking towards the western horizon, stretches the open Atlantic. It is a very little place; only three and a half miles in length by an average of one half mile in width, and of an extreme altitude of a trifle over five hundred feet. The top is an undulating table-land; the sides slope down green with ferns, and in the blossoming-time bright with flowers, to rocks, on the eastern side of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred feet in height; while to the west the cliffs, rich with orange, yellow, and gray lichens, are tumbled in strange confusion, and present a scene of wild and precipitous grandeur. Of the three thousand acres of which the island consists, about five hundred are under cultivation, and produce turnips and cereal crops, besides grass; the remainder is gorse and heather, which, however, is now also in course of being brought into cultivation. Of farm-produce Lundy also rears poultry, sheep, and cattle.

In 1877, the population consisted of between forty and fifty individuals, consisting of the proprietor and his family and household, a farmer and a dozen farm-labourers, three lighthouse-men, and two signal-station-men; besides which the islet boasts of a doctor and a clergyman—though not of a church. The owner Mr W. H. Hearen purchased the property in 1834, and has since, for the most part, resided on his sea-girt rock.

Solitary and little known as Lundy now is, it was once a place of considerable importance. Of its earliest history indeed nothing is ascertained; even its name cannot be exactly traced, and the suggestion that would derive it from the Norse has not met with entire acceptance. Some years since a discovery was made on the island which would have been of more than local interest had the occurrence been duly reported to any of the scientific societies, and thoroughly investigated. Some workmen in digging a foundation for a wall, exhumed two skeletons, which excited wonder from the unusual size of the bones, and from the curious manner of their interment. The larger skeleton, after careful (but unscientific) measurement, was found to be eight feet three inches in height; while the other, though smaller, was yet of no ordinary stature. It has been thought that probably some mistake has been made through want of skill in the measurements; these interesting relics were inclosed in stone slabs, according to a primitive fashion.

The time when Lundy comes clearly in view is of much later date. The noble House of Montmorency (or De Marisco, as the English branch of the family was called) was in earliest recorded possession of the island. The De Mariscos seem to have been a restless turbulent set, a weariness and a grief to their liege lords, two of whom, namely Henry II. and John, respectively made and confirmed a grant of the island as forfeited to the crown (for the misdemeanours of the De Mariscos of their days) to the Knights Templar. The Knights, however, never had it actually in their hands—the De Mariscos proving too wily or too strong for ejectment. Be this as it may, it is recorded that a Sir William de Marisco, of sad piratical proclivities and practice, after a fruitless attempt to murder his sovereign Henry III., retired to his stronghold of Lundy, and there flourished until he was captured by the king’s forces, and summarily put to death. The ruins of his castle at Lundy still bear his name, and perched on the cliff top, commanding a wide sea and coast view, and overlooking the roadstead and single good landing-place of the island, shew what a post of vantage he must have held. Cottages nestle now for shelter from the wild winter winds, within the thick walls of the old keep; and the little gray beach below, shut in by towering precipice and pinnacled rock, tells no tale of former times.

When the troublous days of difference between Charles I. and his parliament darkened the land, Lundy held out stoutly for the king; and when at length, in the fainting of the king’s fortunes, Thomas Bushell the governor writes for permission to surrender it quietly, he concludes his letter with words worthy of remembrance, however obscure the scene and the actor: ‘But if otherwise your Majesty shall require my longer stay here, be confident, Sir, I shall sacrifice both life and fortune before the loyalty of your obedient servant, Thomas Bushell.’ Charles replied from Newcastle, the shadow of his fate already upon him: ‘Bushell—We have perused your letter, in which we finde thy care to answer thy trust we first reposed in thee. Now, since the place is inconsiderable in itself ... we do hereby give you leave to use your discretion in it, with this caution, that you do take example from ourselves, and be not over-credulous of vain promises, which hath made us great only in our sufferings, and will not discharge our debts.’

In subsequent times the island seems to have relapsed into its old wild piratical courses. Complaints many and bitter are made against it. As before it had been a refuge for outcasts, so now it became a harbour for privateers, ‘who put terror into all vessels;’ ‘much shooting’ being heard there also on occasion. For a time it falls into the hands of the French, and is generally a terrible thorn in the sides of the prosperous west country. The next name, however, which has left any local memorial is that of Thomas Benson, a gentleman of North Devon, who renting the island from Lord Gower, made free use of it for his smuggling ventures. A large cave under the castle, where he is said to have stored his contraband goods, is still called ‘Benson’s Cave,’ and must have afforded ample room for many a ‘run cargo.’ To Lundy too he exported such convicts as he was under contract with government to convey to America, and employed them in building walls, saying it ‘was all as well as elsewhere, seeing it was out of England.’ Finally, however, he ceased to enjoy the prosperity of the wicked, and being discovered in a nefarious scheme to rob the insurance offices, he fled to Portugal, where he died. Since then, excepting for some free fighting between Welsh and Irish, the island has had little to recall its stormier days, and appears to have faded out of the public memory—so completely, that the ‘taxed British hoof,’ to use Emerson’s bland expression, leaves no impress on its soil, and the civilised miseries of rates are unknown; though whether the omission is due to a lingering remnant of its old sovereignty, or to its present insignificance, we know not.

In its geological aspect, Lundy seems to be allied to Devonshire, consisting chiefly of granite and slate. Both granite and slate are alike intersected by numerous dikes, varying from one to thirty feet in width, running from east to west, and described as ‘belonging to a grand system of intrusive greenstone.’

Some years ago the granite was worked by a Company, who brought stone-cutters from Scotland, and opened quarries at considerable expense; but the affair is said to have been ill-managed, and the works were closed at a loss. Copper has been found at the junction of the slate and granite at the south end; but the island has been so shaken here and in various other parts by some terrible convulsion of nature, that it is considered improbable that any lode could be profitably followed up. The effects of this convulsion are peculiarly manifested on the western side, between the ‘Quarter’ and ‘Halfway’ walls. Many rents are visible in the solid rock. One large cleft, fern-fringed and flower-bedecked, stands up like a perpendicular wall of some fifty feet on the upper side; the lower, broken and split, has slipped away from it in tumbled rock and treacherous crevice. Below this again is a second, deeper opening. At one end is a narrow entrance, leading by a steep scrambling descent into the yawning chasm. A few green things grow in the chinks and cracks, and sparse tufts of long grass mark the footway. The walls, a little apart, and sloping slightly outwards, are clean cut as by some giant’s sword. The air is chill out of the sunshine, and the strip of sky overhead looks blue and clear between its two dark boundaries. Among the natural curiosities of the island is a mass of granite resembling a human head, with lineaments so perfect, that it is difficult to believe that Art has not supplemented Nature in its formation. The grave face looking seawards, like a watching knight (The Knight Templar as it is called), has probably been the work of many centuries of subtle influences, disintegration by wind and weather—as in the case of the ‘Old Man of Hoy,’ which looks out on the Pentland Firth—being the chief. The soil of the island is principally of a black peaty nature, with in parts a substratum of clay. And that the land has been anciently extensively cultivated is shewn by traces of the plough where now there is only wild pasturage. Ruins of round towers (for what purposes designed is unknown), and of humble dwelling-places, are also visible.

The flora of Lundy is extremely interesting, but has never been exhaustively treated. Masses of broom and gorse (Ulex Europeus) glow like living lights on the ‘sidelands’ in the spring-time; or in early autumn, the latter’s dwarf relative (Ulex nanus) weaves, with heath and heather, carpets gorgeous beyond those of Eastern looms. Thrift (Armeria vulgaris) lies in breadths of pinky bloom, and blue-bells climb like a tender mist along the valleys and slopes. Regal foxgloves tower not only over their own kindred, but above the usual stature of man; and the Osmunda regalis, crowned among ferns, waves its lovely fronds in the pure sea-breeze. Thickets of honeysuckle make the sunshine a fragrance; and the beautiful bladder campion hangs like snow-wreaths from the rocks.

With vegetation so luxuriant in for the most part a mild equable temperature, the insect world is, as would be supposed, a numerous one. The beetle tribe alone, however, has been fully examined. Mr Wollaston, who visited the island many years ago (and is still remembered there as ‘the beetle-catcher’), remarks on the richness of this order of insects and the rarity of the specimens he found there. He also mentions the curious fact, which, however, has been since modified, that the coleopterous fauna of Lundy is quite dissimilar to that of Devonshire, its nearest neighbour, resembling much in character that of Wales. Mr J. B. Chanter of Barnstaple (to whose comprehensive monograph on Lundy we have been indebted for this paper) furnishes some notes regarding certain rare insects found on the island.

The ornithological fauna of Lundy is said to be very remarkable. Amongst the rarer feathered visitants may be mentioned the rose-coloured pastor, the buff-breasted sandpiper, the golden oriole, Bohemian waxwing, hoopoe, &c. Feathered songsters too abound; and when ‘the time of the singing of the birds is come,’ the air is stirred with their thousand lyrics. But the chief feathered inhabitants of the island are the sea-birds, the variety of which, as at St Kilda, would well repay a visit of the ornithologist.