A LAS! how manie naturall things are there so strange, as to manie seeme miraculous; and how manie counterfet matters are there, that to the simple seeme yet more wonderfull? Cardane1 telleth of one Comensis, who comming late to a rivers side, not knowing where to passe over, cried out alowd for some bodie to shew him the foord: who hearing an eccho to answer according to his last word, supposing it to be a man that answered him and informed him of the waie, he passed through the river, even there where was a deepe whirlepoole, so as he hardlie escaped with his life; and told his freends, that the divell had almost persuaded him to drowne himselfe. And in some places these noises of eccho are farre more strange than other, speciallie at Ticinum in Italie,2 in the great hall, where it rendereth sundrie and manifold noises or voices, which seeme to end so lamentablie, as it were a man that laie a dieng; so as few can be persuaded that it is the eccho, but a spirit that answereth.
The noise at Winchester3 was said to be a verie miracle, and much wondering was there at it, about the yeare 1569. though indeed a meere naturall noise ingendered of the wind, the concavitie of the place, and other instrumentall matters helping the sound to seeme strange to the hearers; speciallie to such as would adde new reports to the augmentation of the woonder.
- 3 Of Winchester noise. p. 465