This reading place is 15
or 16 foot above the levell of the pavement: and the echo does more
especially make its returnes from Our Ladies ChappelL
So in my kitchin-garden at the plain at Chalke is a monosyllabicall
Echo; but it is sullen and mute till you advance .... paces on the
easie ascent, at which place one's mouth is opposite to the middle of
the heighth of the house at right angles; and then, - to use the
expression of the Emperor Nero,-
"-- reparabilis adsonat Echo."-PERSIUS.
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Why may I not take the libertie to subject to this discourse of echos
some remarks of SOUNDS? The top of one of the niches in the grot in
Wilton gardens, as one sings there, doth return the note A "re",
lowder, and clearer, but it doth not the like to the eighth of it. The
diameter is 22 inches. But the first time I happened on this kind of
experiment was when I was a scholar in Oxford, walking and singing
under Merton-Colledge gate, which is a Gothique irregular vaulting, I
perceived that one certain note could be returned with a lowd humme,
which was C. "fa", "ut", or D. "sol", "re"; I doe not now well
remember which. I have often observed in quires that at certain notes
of the organ the deske would have a tremulation under my hand. So will
timber; so will one's hat, though a spongie thing, as one holds it
under one's arm at a musique meeting. These accidents doe make me
reflect on the brazen or copper Tympana, mentioned by
Vitruvius, for the clearer and farther conveying the sound of the
recitatores and musicians to the auditors.
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