OF SELBORNE. 127 



the report would have had a great effect ; 

 but the experiment did not answer his 

 expectation. He then removed them to 

 the Alcove on the Hanger; when the sound, 

 rushing along the Lythe and Comb-woody 

 was very grand : but it was at the Hermit- 

 age that the echoes and repercussions de- 

 lighted the hearers ; not only filling the 

 Lythe with the roar, as if all the beeches 

 were tearing up by the roots ; but turning 

 to the left, they pervaded the vale above 

 Comhwood ponds ; and after a pause seemed 

 to take up the crash again, and to extend 

 round Harteley hangers, and to die away 

 at last among the coppices and coverts of 

 Ward-le-ham. It has been remarked before 

 that this district is an anathoth, a place of 

 responses or echoes, and therefore proper 

 for such experiments : we may farther add 

 that the pauses in echoes, when they cease 

 and yet are taken up again, like the pauses 

 in music, surprise the hearers, and have a 

 fine effect on the imagination. 



The gentleman above-mentioned has just 

 fixed a barometer in his parlour at Newton 



