d of the root
cut off, they eat raw with oil and pepper;" and further adds: "curled
endive blanched is much used beyond seas; and for a raw sallet, seemed to
excell lettuce itself." Now this journey was undertaken no longer ago
than in the year 1663.

I am, etc.

LETTER XXXVIII.

SELBORNE, _Feb._ 12_th_, 1778.

"Forte puer, comitum seductus ab agmine fido,
Dixerat, ecquis adest? et, adest, responderat echo,
Hic stupet; utque aciem partes divisit in omnes;
Voce, veni, clamat magna. Vocat illa 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 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 off. Buildings, or naked rocks, re-echo much more articulately
than hanging woods or vales; because in the latter the voice is as it
we