226 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



quotation, so finely describing echoes, and so poetically accounting 

 for their causes from popular superstition : 



"Quae bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis 

 Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola 

 Saxa paries formas verborum ex ordine reddant, 

 Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos 

 Quoerimus, et magna disperses voce ciemus. 

 Sex etiam, aut septem loca vidi reddere voces 

 Unam quom jaceres : ita colles collibus ipsis 

 Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. 

 Haec loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere 

 Finitimi fingunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur ; 

 Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti 

 Adfirmant volgo taciturna silentia rumpi, 

 Chordarumque sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas, 

 Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum : 

 Et genus agricolum late sentisoere, quom Pan 

 Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans, 

 Unco ssepe labro calamos percurrit hianteis, 

 Fistula silvestrem ne cesset fundere musam. " * 



LUCRETIUS, Lib. iv. 1. 576. 



* "Whence may'st thou solve, ingenuous ! to the world 

 The rise of echoes, formed in desert scenes, 

 Mid rocks, and mountains, mocking every sound, 

 When late we wander through their solemn glooms, 

 And, with loud voice, some lost companion call. 

 And oft re-echoes echo till the peal 

 Rings seven times round ; so rock to rock repels 

 The mimic shout, reiterated close. 



"Here haunt the goat-foot satyrs, and the nymphs, 

 As rustics tell, and fauns whose frolic dance, 

 And midnight revels oft, they say, are heard 

 Breaking the noiseless silence ; while soft strains 

 Melodious issue, and the vocal band 

 Strike to their madrigals the plaintive lyre, 

 Such, feign they, sees the shepherd obvious oft, 

 J^ed on by Pan, with pine-leaved garland crown'd 

 And seven-mouth'd reed his labouring lip beneath, 

 Waking the woodland muse with ceaseless song." 



J. MASON GCCD. 



