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NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
LETTER XXXVIII. To the Hon. DAINES BARRINGTON. 
" Fortd puer, comitum seductus ab agmine fido, 
Dixerat, ecquis adest ? et, adest, responderat echo. 
Hie stupet ; utque aciem partes divisit in oranes ; 
Voce, veni, clamat magna. Vocat ilia vocantem." 
DEAR SIR, Selhorne, Feb. 12, 1778. 
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 me- 
lody 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 sur- 
prised, 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 dis- 
cerned the deception. 
This echo in an evening, before rural noises cease, would re- 
peat ten syllables most articulately and distinctly, especially if 
quick dactyls were chosen. The last syllables of 
♦* Tityre, tu patulae 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. 
All echoes have some one place to which they are returned 
stronger and more distinct than to any other ; and that is always 
the place that lies at right angles with the object of repercussion, 
and is not too near, nor too far oflf. Buildings, or naked rocks, 
