202 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 



LETTER XXXVIII. To THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



" FortS puer, comitum seductus ab agmine fido, 

 Dixerat, ecquis adest ? et, adest, responderat echo. 

 Hie stupet ; utque aciem partes divisit in omnes ; 

 Voce, veni, clamat magna. Vocat ilia vocantem." 



DEAR SIR, Selborne, Feb. 12, 1778. 



IN a district so diversified as this, so full of hollow vales and 

 hanging woods, it is no wonder that echoes should abound. 

 Many we have discovered that return the cry of a pack of dogs, 

 the notes of a hunting-horn, a tunable ring of bells, or the me- 

 lody of birds, very agreeably : but we were still at a loss for a 

 polysyllabical, articulate echo, till a young gentleman, who had 

 parted from his company in a summer evening walk, ajad was 

 calling after them, stumbled upon a very curious one in a spot 

 where it might least be expected. At first he was much sur- 

 prised, and could not be persuaded but that he was mocked by 

 some boy ; but, repeating his trials in several languages, and 

 finding his respondent to be a very adroit polyglot, he then dis- 

 cerned the deception. 



This echo in an evening, before rural noises cease, would re- 

 peat ten syllables most articulately and distinctly, especially if 

 quick dactyls were chosen. The last syllables of 



" Tityre, tu patulae recubans " 



were as audibly and intelligibly returned as the first : and there 

 is no doubt, could trial have been made, but that at midnight, 

 when the air is very elastic, and a dead stillness prevails, one or 

 two syllables more might have been obtained ; but the distance 

 rendered so late an experiment very inconvenient. 



Quick dactyls, we observed, succeeded best ; for when we 

 came to try its powers in slow, heavy, embarrassed spondees of 

 the same number of syllables, 



" Monstrum horrendum,informe, ingens " 



we could perceive a return but of four or five. 



All echoes have some one place to which they are returned 

 stronger and more distinct than to any other ; and that is always 

 the place that lies at right angles with the object of repercussion, 

 and is not too near, nor too far off. Buildings, or naked rocks, 



