OF SELBORNE. 321 



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 a hill, with a like rising opposite to 

 it, at a few hundred yards' distance ; and perhaps suc- 

 cess might be the easier ensured, 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 loqua- 

 cious nymph ; of whose complacency and decent reserve 

 more may be said than can with truth of every indivi- 

 dual of her sex ; since she is 



" quae 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 : 



" Qua? bene quom videas, rationem reddere 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 repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. 

 Haec loca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere 

 Finitiini fingunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur ; 

 Quorum noctivago strepitu, ludoque jocanti 

 Adfirmant volgo taciturna 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 saepe labro calamos percurrit hianteis, 

 Fistula silvestrem ne cesset fundere musam." 



Lucretius, lib. iv. 1. 576. 

 Y 



