212 NATURAL HISTORY 



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 ab- 

 sorbed and lost among the poles and entangled foliage of the 

 hops. And when the poles are removed in autumn the dis- 

 appointment 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 repercussion of the voice : 

 so that till those obstructions are removed no more of it's 

 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 ensured 

 could some canal, lake, or stream, intervene. From a seat at 

 the centrum pJionicum he and his friends might amuse them- 

 selves 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 ; since she is 



" quae nee reticere loquenti, 



" Nee prior ipsa logui 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 : 



" Quae bene quom videas, rationem redder e possis 

 " Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola 

 < Saxa pareis formas verborum ex ordine reddant, 



* Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos 

 ' Quaerimus, et magna disperses voce ciemus. 



' Sex etiam, aut septem loca vidi reddere voces 

 ' Unam quom jaceres : ita colles collibus ipsis 

 ' Verba repulsautes iterabant dicta referre. 

 ' Hsec loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tehere 



* Finitimi fingunt, et Fauuos esse loquuntur j 



