310 'The Natural History of Selborne 



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 ; since she is 



" . . . . qucz nee reticere loquenti, 

 Nee 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 : 



" Quce bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis 

 Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola 

 Saxa paries formas verborum ex ordine reddant, 

 Palanteis comites quoin monteis inter opacos 

 Qucerimus, et magna dispersos voee ciemus. 

 Sex etiam, ant septem loca iridi reddere voces 

 Unam qnom jaceres : ita colles collibus ipsis 

 Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. 

 H&c loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere 

 Finiiimi fingunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur; 

 Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti 

 Adfirmant volgo tacit urna si lent ia rumpi, 

 Chordarumque sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas, 

 J^ibia quas fundit digitis puhata canentum : 

 Et genus agricolum late sentiscere, quom Pan 

 Pinea semiferi capitis velamina yuassatis, 

 Unco scepe labro calamos percurrit hianteis, 

 Fistula silvestrem ne cessct fundere tnusatn.'' 



LUCRETIUS, Lib. iv. 1. 576. 



