In treating the important subject of echoes in churches and public buildings, Mr. Herschell has exposed several prevailing errors, and laid down several useful principles, which merit the particular attention of the architect.  In small buildings the echo is not distinguishable from the principal sound, and therefore serves only to strengthen it; but in very large buildings, where the original sound and its echo are distinctly separated, the effect is highly disagreeable.  In cathedrals, this bad effect is diminished by reading the service in a monotonous chant, in consequence of which the voice is blended in the same sound with its echo.  In musical performances, however, this resource is not available.  When ten notes are executed in a single second, as in many pieces of modern music, the echo, in the direction of the length of a room fifty-five feet long, will exactly throw the second reverberation of each note on the principal sound of the following note, wherever the auditor is placed.  Under such circumstances, therefore, the performers should be stationed in the middle of the apartment.—­Ibid.

    [2] Travels through Sicily and the Lipari Islands in the month of
        December, 1824.  By a Naval Officer. 1 vol. 8vo.  London, 1827.

* * * * *

THE GATHERER.

  A snapper up of unconsidered trifles. 
  SHAKSPEARE.

* * * * *

PATHETIC EPITAPH.

(To the Editor.)

Among the many monumental inscriptions and epitaphs which have fallen under my notice (and I have been a “Gatherer” ever since the days of my childhood) I have seldom met with one more calculated to start the tender tear than the following, which I copied from an old and long since defunct periodical, which describes it as “placed by a Mr. Thickness on the grave of his daughter, who lies buried in his garden, at St. Catherine’s Hermitage, near Bath.”

At the Lady’s Head is a beautiful Monument, with the following Inscription: 

  What tho’ no sacred earth afford thee room,
  Nor hallow’d dirge be mutter’d o’er thy tomb,
  Yet shall thy grave with rising flowers be drest,
  And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast. 
  Here shall the morn her earliest tears bestow—­
  Here the first roses of the year shall blow;
  While angels with their silver wings o’ershade
  The ground now sacred by thy reliques made.

At her Feet: 

  Reader, if YOUTH should sparkle in thine eye—­
  If on thy cheek the flow’r of beauty blows,
  Here shed a tear, and heave the pensive sigh
  Where BEAUTY, YOUTH, and INNOCENCE repose.

  Doth wit adorn thy mind?—­doth science pour
  It’s ripen’d bounties on thy vernal year? 
  Behold! where Death has cropp’d the plenteous store—­
  And heave the sigh, and shed the pensive tear.