ECHOES. 25 



hop-garden, and the voice of the speaker is totally 

 absorbed and lost among 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 repercussion of 

 the voice: so that till those obstructions are re- 

 moved 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 it, at a few 

 hundred yards' distance; and perhaps success 

 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 loquacious nymph ; of whose com- 

 placency 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." 



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 : 



" Quae bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis 

 Tute tibi atque aliis, quopacto per loca sola 

 Saxa pareis formas verborum ex ordine reddant, 

 Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos 

 Quaerimus, et magna disperses voce ciemus. 



