NATURAL HISTOUY OF SELBORNE 
159 
this defect ; for the field between is planted as an 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 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 it, 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 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 
* ' quae nec reticere loquenti, 
Nec 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 : — 
*' Quse bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis 
Tute tibi atque aliis, quo pacto per loca sola 
Saxa paries formas verborum ex ordine reddaut, 
Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos 
Quserimus, et magna disperses voce ciemus. 
Sex etiam, aut septem loca vidi reddere voces 
Unam quom jaceres : ita coUes coUibus ipsis 
Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre. 
Hsec loca capripedes 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 latb sentiscere, quom Pan 
Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans, 
Unco SEepe labro calamos percurrit hianteis, v 
Fistula silvestrem ne cesset fundere musam." ^ I 
Lucretius, Lib. iv. 1. 576. 
"Whence may'st thou solve, ingenuous ! to the world 
The rise of echoes, formed in desert scenes, 
Mid rocks, and mountains, mocking every sound, 
When late we wander through their solemn glooms, 
And, with loud voice, some lost companion call. 
And oft re-echoes echo till the peal 
Rings seven times round ; so rock to rock repels 
The mimic shout, reiterated close. 
** Here haunt the goat-foot satyrs, and the nymphs, 
As rustics tell, and fauns whose frolic dance, 
And midnight revels oft, they say, are heard 
Breaking the noiseless silence ; while soft strains 
Melodious issue, and the vocal band 
