The most considerable whispering-places in England are, the whispering-gallery in the dome of St. Paul’s, London, where the ticking of a watch may be heard from side to side, and a very easy whisper be sent all round the dome. The famous whispering-place in Gloucester Cathedral, is no other than a gallery above the east end of the choir, leading from one side thereof to the other. It consists of five angles and six sides; the middlemost of which is a naked window, yet two whisperers hear each other at the distance of twenty-five yards.
In the Philosophical Transactions for 1746, there is a letter inserted from Robert Southwell, Esq. in which he gives the following account of some extraordinary whispering-places and echoes.—“The best whispering-place in England,” he observes, “I ever saw, was that at Gloucester: but in Italy, in the way to Naples, two days from Rome, I saw, in a inn, a room with a square vault, where a whisper could be easily heard at the opposite corner, but not at all in the side corner that was near to you.
“I saw another, in the way from Paris to Lyons, in the porch of a common inn, which had a round vault: but neither of these was comparable to that of Gloucester; only the difference between these last two was, that to the latter, by holding your mouth to the side of the wall, several could hear you on the other side; the voice being more diffused: but to the former, it being a square room, and you whispering in the corner, it was only audible in the opposite corner, and not to any distance from thence, as to distinction of words. And this property was common to each corner of the room.
“As to Echoes, there is one at Brussels that answers fifteen times: but when at Milan, I went two miles from thence to a nobleman’s palace, to notice one still more extraordinary. The building is of some length in the front, and has two wings projecting forward; so that it wants only one side of an oblong figure. About one hundred paces before the house, there runs a small brook, and that very slowly; over which you pass from the house into the garden. We carried some pistols with us, and, firing one of them, I heard fifty-six reiterations of the noise. The first twenty were with some distinction; but then, as the noise seemed to fly away, and the answers were at a great distance, the repetition was so doubled, that you could hardly count them all, seeming as if the principal sound was saluted in its passage by reports on this and that side at the same time. Some of our company reckoned above sixty reiterations, when a louder pistol was discharged.”
Some persons tell us, that the sound of one musical instrument in this place will seem like a great number of instruments playing together in concert. This echo is of the multiple or tautological kind, returning one sound several times successively, so as to make one clap of the hands seem like many,—one ha, like a laughter,—or one instrument like several of the same kind, imitating each other; and by placing certain echoing bodies in such a manner, that any note played should be returned in thirds, fifths, and eighths, a musical room may be so contrived, that not only one violin played therein shall seem many of the same sort and size, but even a concert of different instruments. Those echoes which return the voice but once are called single; whereof some are tonical, only repeating when modulated into some particular musical tone. Others, that repeat many syllables or words, are termed polysyllabical; of which kind is the fine echo in Woodstock Park, which Dr. Plott assures us will return seventeen syllables distinctly in the day-time, and in the night twenty. Barthius likewise, in his notes on Statius’s Thebais, mentions an echo near Bingeni in Germany, which would repeat words seventeen times, as he himself had proved; and what is very strange in this echo, the person who speaks is scarcely heard at all, but the repetition most clearly, and always in surprising varieties, the echo seeming sometimes to approach nearer, and sometimes to retire to a greater distance. Vitruvius tells us, that in several parts of Greece and Italy there were brazen vessels artfully ranged under the seats of the theatres, to render the sound of the actors’ voices more clear, and make a kind of echo; by which means, of the prodigious number of persons present, every one might hear with ease and pleasure.
Knout.—This is a punishment inflicted in Russia, with a kind of whip called knout, and made of a long strap of leather prepared for this purpose. With this whip the executioners dexterously carry a slip of skin from the neck to the bottom of the back, laid bare to the waist; and repeating their blows, in a little while rend away all the skin off the back in parallel strips. In the common knout, the criminal receives the lashes suspended on the back of one of the executioners; but in the great knout, which is generally used on the same occasions as racking on the wheel was in France, the criminal is raised into the air by means of a pulley fixed to the gallows, and a cord fastened to the two wrists, which are tied together; a piece of wood is placed between his two legs, which are also tied together; and another of a crucial form under his breast. Sometimes his hands are tied behind over his back, and when he is pulled up in this position, his shoulders are dislocated. The executioners can make this punishment more or less cruel; and it is said, they are so dexterous, that when a criminal is condemned to die, they can make him expire either by one or several lashes.
Natural Productions resembling Artificial Compositions.—Some stones are preserved by the curious, for representing distinctly figures traced by Nature alone, and without the aid of Art.
Pliny mentions an agate, in which appeared, formed by the hand of Nature, Apollo amidst the Nine Muses, holding a harp. Majolus assures us, that at Venice another is seen, in which is naturally formed the perfect figure of a man. At Pisa, in the church of St. John, there is a similar natural production, which represents an old hermit in a desert, seated by the side of a stream, and who holds in his hands a small bell, as St. Anthony is commonly painted. In the temple of St. Sophia, at Constantinople, there was formerly, on a white marble, the image of St. John the Baptist, covered with the skin of a camel, with this only imperfection, that nature had given but one leg.—At Ravenna, in the church of St. Vital, a Cordelier is seen on a dusky stone. In Italy, a marble was found, in which a crucifix was so elaborately finished, that there appeared the nails, the drops of blood, and the wounds, as perfectly as the most excellent painter could have performed.—At Sneilberg, in Germany, they found in a mine a certain rough metal, on which was seen the figure of a man, who carried a child on his back.—In Provence, was found, in a mine, a quantity of natural figures of birds, trees, rats, and serpents; and in some places of the western parts of Tartary, are seen on divers rocks, the figures of camels, horses, and sheep. Pancirollus, in his Lost Antiquities, attests, that in a church at Rome, a marble perfectly represented a priest celebrating mass, and raising the host. Paul III. conceiving that art had been used, scraped the marble to discover whether any painting had been employed; but nothing of the kind was discovered.
There is a species of the orchis found in the mountainous parts of Lincolnshire, Kent, &c. Nature has formed a bee, apparently feeding in the breast of the flower, with so much exactness, that it is impossible at a very small distance to distinguish the imposition. Hence the plant derives its name, and is called the Bee Flower. This is elegantly expressed by Langhorne, who thus notices its appearance:
See on that flow’ret’s velvet breast,
How close the busy vagrant lies!
His thin-wrought plume, his downy breast,
Th’ ambrosial gold that swells his thighs.
Perhaps his fragrant load may bind
His limbs; we’ll set the captive free:—
I sought the living Bee to find,
And found the picture of a Bee.