220 NA TURAL HISTOR Y OF SELBORNE. 



Some time since its discovery this echo is become totally 

 silent, though the object, or hop-kiln, remains ; nor is there any 

 mystery in this defect ; for the field between is planted as an hop- 

 garden, and the voice of the speaker is totally absorbed and lost 

 amojng the poles and entangled foliage of the hops. And when the 

 poles are removed in autumn the disappointment is the same ; 

 because a tall quick-set hedge, nurtured up for the purpose of 

 shelter to the hop ground, entirely interrupts the impulse and re- 

 percussion of the voice ; so that till these obstructions are removed 

 no more of its garrulity can be expected. 



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 an hill, with a like rising opposite to ib 

 at a few hundred yards distance ; and perhaps success might be 

 the easier insured could some canal, lake, or stream intervene. 

 From a seat at the centrii m 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 



" 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 : 



' Ouae bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis 

 Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per bca sola 

 Saxa paries formas verborum ex prdine reddant, 

 Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos 

 Quaerimus, et magna disperses vcce ciemus. 

 Sexetiam, aut septem 1 ca vidi reddere voces 

 Unam quom jaceres : ita colles c^llibus ipsis 

 Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. 

 Hsec Icca capripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere 

 Finitimi fingunt, et Faunos esse loquuntur;_ 

 Qu rum noctivago strepitu. ludoque jocanti 

 Adfirmant volgo taciturna silentia rumpi, 

 Chnrdarumnue sonos fieri, dulceisque querelas, 

 Tibia quas fundit digitis pulsata canentum: 

 Et genus agncolum late sentiscere, quom Pan 



