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. ___________________________________
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. I am from hence induc't to be of opinion that these tympana were made according to such and such proportions, suitable to such and such notes.
Mersennus, or Kircher, sayes, that one may know what quantity of liquor is in the vessel by the sound of it, knowing before the empty note. I have severall times heard great brasse pannes ring by the barking of a hound; and also by the loud voice of a strong man.-(The voice, if very strong and sharp, will crack a drinking glass.- J. EVELYN.)
[I have been favoured with a confirmation of this note of Evelyn from the personal experience of my old friend. Mr. Brayley, who was present at a party on Ludgate Hill, London, many years ago, when Mr. Broadhurst, the famed public vocalist, by singing a high note, caused a wine glass on the table to break, the bowl being separated from the stem.-J. B.] ___________________________________
After the echos I would have the draught of the house of John Hall, at Bradford, Esq., which is the best built house for the quality of a gentleman in Wilts. It was of the best architecture that was commonly used in King James the First's raigne. It is built all of freestone, full of windowes, hath two wings: the top of the house adorned with railes and baristers. There are two if not three elevations or ascents to it: the uppermost is adorned with terrasses, on which are railes and baristers of freestone. It faceth the river Avon, which lies south of it, about two furlongs distant: on the north side is a high hill. Now, a priori, I doe conclude that if one were on the south side of the river opposite to this elegant house, that there must of necessity be a good echo returned from the house; and probably if one stand east or west from the house at a due distance, the wings will afford a double echo.
[Part of this once fine and interesting mansion still remains, but wofully degraded and mutilated. It is called Kingston House, having been formerly the residence of a Duke of Kingston. It appears to have been built by the same architect as the mansion of Longleat, which was erected between the years 1567 and 1579, and for which, it is believed, John of Padua was employed to make designs.-J. B.]
CHAPTER II SPRINGS MEDICINALL.
[IN Aubrey's time the mineral waters of Bath, Tonbridge, and other places, were very extensively resorted to for medical purposes, and great importance was attached to them in a sanatory point of view. The extracts which have been selected from this chapter sufficiently shew the limited extent of the author's chemical knowledge, in the analysis of waters; which he appears to have seldom carried beyond precipitation or evaporation. He mentions several other springs in Wiltshire and elsewhere, attributing various healing properties to some of them; but of others merely observing, with great simplicity, whether or not their water was adapted to wash linen, boil pease, or affect the fermentation of beer. The chapter comprises a few remarks on droughts; and particularly mentions a remarkable cure of cancer by an "emplaster" or "cataplasme" of a kind of unctuous earth found in Bradon forest.- J. B.]
HOLY-WELL, in the parish of Chippenham, near Sheldon, by precipitation of one-third of a pint with a strong lixivium, by the space of twenty- four houres I found a sediment of the quantity of neer a small hazell nut-shell of a kind of nitre; sc. a kind of flower of that colour (or lime stone inclining to yellow); the particles as big as grosse sand. Upon evaporation of the sayd water, which was a pottle or better, I found two sorts of sediment, perhaps by reason of the oblique hanging of the kettle: viz. one sort of a deep soot colour; the other of the colour of cullom earth. It changed not colour by infusion of powder of galles. Try it with syrup of violettes.