220 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
Some time since its discovery this echo is become totally 
silent, though the object, or hop-kiln, remains; nor is there any 
mystery in this defect ; for the field between is planted as an hop- 
garden, and the voice of the speaker is totally absorbed and lost 
among the poles and entangled foliage of the hops. And when the 
poles are removed in autumn the disappointment is the same ; 
because a tall quick-set hedge, nurtured up for the purpose of 
shelter to the hop ground, entirely interrupts the impulse and re- 
percussion of the voice; so that till these obstructions are removed 
no more of its garrulity can be expected. 
Should any gentleman of fortune think an echo in his park or 
outlet a pleasing incident, he might build one at little or no expense. 
For whenever he had occasion for a new barn, stable, dog-kennel, 
or the like structure, it would be only needful to erect this building 
on the gentle declivity of an hill, with a like rising opposite to it, 
at a few hundred yards distance; and perhaps success might be 
the easier insured could some canal, lake, or stream intervene. 
From a seat at the centrum phonicum he and his friends might 
amuse themselves sometimes of an evening with the prattle of this 
loquacious nymph ; of whose complacency and decent reserve more 
may be said than can with truth of every individual of her sex ; 
SUNCE SMe Asa ss) eo tate 
ce — que nec reticere loquenti, 
Nec prior ipsa loqui didicit resonabilis echo.” 
I am, &c. 
P.S. The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the following lovely 
quotation, so finely describing echoes, and so poetically accounting 
for their causes from popular superstition :—-. 
“‘OQuze bené quom videas, rationem reddere possis 
Tute tibi atgue aliis, quo pacto per Irca sola 
Saxa paries formas verborum ex ordine reddant, 
Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos 
Quzrimus, et magna dispersos voce ciemus. 
Sex etiam, aut septem loca vidi reddere voces 
Unam quom jaceres: ita colles collibus ipsis 
Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. 
Hec loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere 
Finitimi fingunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur; 
Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti 
Adfirmant volgo taciturna silentia rumpi, 
Chordarumoue sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas, 
Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum: 
Et genus agr.colfim laté sentiscere, quom Pan 
