14. The Natural Hiftory 



three of the furtheft muft needs be out of the voices a&ion. 



26. Much lefs fure can any fingle objecl: perform this, and yet 

 Jacobus Boiffardus, in his Topography of Rome, reports this to be ^ 

 true upon his own knowledge. On the Appian way (faies he) 

 amongft many other vafl ruins, which fome think, to have been the 

 Caftle wherein the Praetorian Soldiers lay, there are many Sepulchers, 

 cbtufe and [olid Pyramids, (yc. But the moil eminent it of a round 

 form, made of fquared white Marble, like a Tower, hollow within 

 and open at the top, erecled in memory of Caecilia Metella : itjiands 



in the corner of another wall, in whofe circuit there are carved in Mar* * 

 ble, near 200 Bulls heads, whence 'tis called, Capo di Boi. At 

 the foot of the hill where this Tower (lands, if any man pronounce an 

 Heroic Verfe, a wonderful Echo there is, that returns it often entirely 

 and articulately : 1 my f elf, fays he, have heard it repeat the firfl 

 Verfe of Virgils JEneids diflindly eight times, and afterward often 

 broken and confufedly. Noplace in the World yields the like Echo w , 

 isrc. And what if I add, nor that neither, fince befide the natural 

 impoffibility of the thing, the induftrious Kircher, after he had 

 ufed all imaginable care in the queft of it, came away unfuccefs- 

 ful, and found no fuch matter *. 



27. But though we have no confiderable Tautological Echo's, 

 by a fimple refleftion, yet we have others of no inferior account 

 made by a double one, which alfo arifing from divers obje&s, 

 though in a different manner, belong to this place. Of thefe, 

 though there are fcarce any that will return a Trijfyllable, occ?ion- 

 ed, I fuppofe, by the nearnefs of the fecondary objefts, yet a clap 

 with the hands or ftamp of the feet, there are fome will re- 

 turn eight, nine, or ten times, the noife dying, as it were, and 

 melting away by degrees with fuch a trembling noife, that I fom- 

 time thought of the Epithet [tremulous] to difcriminate this fort 

 of Echo from the reft. 



28. At Heddington, in the Garden of one M r Pawling Mercer 

 of Oxon: there is a wall of about 40 yards long, built for the 

 advantage of the Fruit, with divers Niches ; to which, if you 

 ftand but a little obliquely, fo as to fee the Peers ftanding out be- 

 tween each two of them, you have the feveral objefts of fuch an 

 Echo, not above nine or ten foot diftant from each other, which 

 return a clap with the hand, or a monofyllable (the wind being 



w J<*ni Jacob- Boifardi, TtfografhiaHom^p 65, 66. * Magi* Fhoxocamptic*, Pra/uf.2. 



quiet 



