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, etc.
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:
Quae bene quom videas, rationem reddere possis
Tute tibi atque alus, quo pacto per loca sola
Saxa pareis formas verborum ex ordine reddant,
Palanteis comites quom monteis inter opacos
Quaerimus, et magna dispersos voce ciemus.
Sex etiam, aut septem loca vidi reddere voces
Unam quom jaceres: ita colles collibus ipsis
Verba repulsantes iterabant dicta referre.
Haec 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 late sentiscere, quom Pan
Pinea semiferi capitis velamina quassans,
Unco saepe labro calamos percurrit hianteis,
Fistula silvestrem ne cesset fundere musam.
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