Winstanley is described as one of those eccentric but ingenious men who find a peculiar pleasure in mystifying their friends, and in throwing a kind of glamour or magical atmosphere over our daily, commonplace, realistic life. He made use of his scientific knowledge to play the most extraordinary practical jokes. You went to spend a night or two at his old Essex manor-house. On entering your bed-room, you nearly tripped over an old slipper. You kicked it aside, and, lo, a ghost immediately started from the floor. In your sudden alarm you flung yourself into the nearest chair: out sprang a couple of arms, and clasped you and held you a prisoner. You went into the garden, and sought repose in a woodbine-trellised arbour. Your seat and yourself shot away from the pleasant alcove, and were quickly floating in the middle of the adjoining canal! The author of such devices as these might be, and was, a noble and chivalrous gentleman, but he was also, unquestionably, a very eccentric character! His eccentricity displayed itself in the lighthouse which his chivalrous humanity instigated him to build on the Eddystone Rock. On first glancing at an engraving of it, you hardly know whether you see before you a Chinese pagoda or a Turkish minaret, grafted on a circular tower, and ornamented with cranes and chains like a London warehouse! Winstanley began his work in 1696. The first summer--and, of course, it was in summer only that men could labour on that wind-swept, wave-worn rock--was occupied in excavating twelve holes, and fastening as many irons in them, to serve for the superstructure. [Sidenote: Progress of the work.] Very slowly and drearily did the work go on; for though it was the "sweet summer-time," out in the wild channel the weather would frequently prove of such terrible violence that, for ten or fourteen days in succession, the waters would boil and toss about the rocks--vexed by contrary winds, and by the inrush of the swelling billows from the main ocean--and mount one upon another, like maddened horses, and leap and bound to such a height as completely to bury the reef and all upon it, and effectually prevent any vessel or boat from drawing near. On such days the men, you may be sure, thanked God that they were housed safely on the green shores of Devon.