The Natural History of Selborne 297 



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 



" . . . . qu<e 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 : 



"Qute 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 

 Qu&rimus, et magna disperses voce ciemus. 

 Sex etiam y aut septem loca vidi reddere voces 

 Unam quom jaceres : ita colles collibus ipsis 

 Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. 

 Hac loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere 

 Finitimi jingunt, et Faunas esse loquuntur ; 

 Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti 

 Adfirmant volgo tacit urna silentia rumpi, 

 Chordarumque sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas, 

 Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum : 

 Et genus agricolum late sentiscere, quom Pan 

 Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans, 

 Unco seepe labro calamos percurrit Mantels, 

 Fistula sihestrem ne cesset fundere musam" 



LUCRETIUS, Lib. iv. 1. 576. 



