212 ECHOES. 



i LETTER LXXX. 



TO THE HON. DAINES BARRINGTON. 



SELBORNE, February 12, 1778. 



Forte 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, 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 melody 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, and was calling after them, stumbled 

 upon a very curious one, in a spot where it might least be 

 expected. At first, he was much surprised, 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 discerned the deception. 



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

 repeat ten syllables most articulately and distinctly, especially 

 if quick dactyls were chosen. The last syllables of 



Tityre, tu patulse 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.* 



* There is a very extraordinary echo at a ruined fortress near Lourain 

 in France. If a person sings, he only hears his own voice, without any 

 repetition ; on the contrary, those who stand at some distance, hear the 

 echo, but not the voice ; but then they hear it with surprising variations, 

 sometimes louder, sometimes softer, now more near, then more distant. 



