ECHOES. 215 



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 a 

 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 pur- 

 pose of shelter to the hop-ground, entirely interrupts the impulse 

 and repercussion of the voice : so that, till those 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 need- 

 ful 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 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 complacency and decent reserve, more may be said than 

 can with truth of every individual of her sex ; since she is 



Quse nee reticere loquenti, 

 Nee prior ipsa loqui, didicit resonabilis echo. 



P.S. The classic reader will, I trust, pardon the following 

 lovely quotation, so finely describing echoes, and so poetically 

 acccounting for their causes from popular superstition : 



Quae bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis 

 Tute tibi atque aliis, quo paeto per loca sola 

 Saxa pareis formas verborum ex ordine reddant, 

 Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos 

 Quaerimus, et magna disperses voee ciemus. 

 Sex etiam, aut septem loca vidi reddere voces 

 Unam quom jaceres : ita colles collibus ipsis 

 Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. 

 Hsec loca eapripedes Satyros, Nymphasque tenere 

 Finitimi 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 ssepe labro calamos percurrit hianteis, 

 Fistula silvestrem ne cesset fundere musam. 



LUCEETIUS, lib. ir. 



