"Wee have also Sound-houses, wher we practise and demonstrate all Sounds, and the Generation. Wee have harmonies which you have not, of Quarter-Sounds, and lesser Slides of Sounds. Diverse Instruments of Musick likewise to you unknowne, some sweeter than any you have; Together with Bells and Rings that are dainty and sweet. Wee represent Small Sounds as well as Great and Deepe; Likewise Great Sounds, Extenuate and Sharpe; Wee make diverse Tremblings and Warblings of Sounds, which in their Originalle are Entire. Wee represent and imitate all Articulate Sounds and Letters, and the Voices and Notes of Beasts and Birds. Wee have certain Helps, which sett to the Eare doe further the Hearing greatly. Wee have also diverse Strange and Artificiall Echos's, Reflecting the Voice many times, and as it were Tossing it: And some that give back the Voice lowder than it come, some Shriller, some Deeper; Yea some rendering the Voice, Differing in the letters or Articulate Sound, from that they receyve, Wee have also means to convey Sounds in Trunks and Pipes, in strange Lines, and Distances."
- Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis, 1624