The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-17

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Gated than those of the midland provinces,
though, according to all accounts, they are
less nobly gifted by nature, and spring from
''barbarians," and not from the ancient
Romans: some say from the Goths and Van
dals. The peasants of Tuscany pride them
selves on having gentler pedigree. Their
patois is the language of scholars. Dante
wrote in it, Galileo thought in 1t, Italy is
being governed by it at the present day.
The shepherd-boy who tends his focks on
the mountains of the Val d'Arno and knows
nothing of books except that they have
been forbidden by the priest, talks
more correctly and pronounces his
Lombard gentleman. He can improvise
poetry, or, should say, poetical phrases,
better than lawyer can defend his client, or
a doctor talk to his sick man, in many of the
northern towns. Nay, it is scarcely an ex-
aegeration to say that the lower classes of
Tuscany are born in the purple of literature,
just as the birds of the forest are born
sopgsters. They talk correctly as the fish
swins properly; as fire burns with a due
regard to the rules of chemistry without
knowing them; as leaves fall to the ground
in obedience to the law of gravitation You
may find peasants and charcoal-burners in
the midland provinces of Italy whose know
ledge of the Divins Comedy and the Two Or
lsndi Orlando Furioso and Orlando
that of an Italian ltterato;
nay, it may be, profounder, for while
the latter has often a large library to fall back
upon, the peasant is confined to his ancient
epics the books he has learnt by tradition,
as a child learns fairy tales, by word of mouth
and memory, and not by book or pen, though
now and then his natural powers are eked out
by a little learning. The majority of the
peasants are, of course, ignorant of these
chefs-d 6uvre, and those who can read by the
card do not always read poetry: the Reali di
Francia, the story of Bertoldo and Bertoldino
"a kind of prose epic), and the legends and
htanies OF the saints, being among their favo-
rite books.
The Italian peasantry ontribute very largely
to the military resources of the country. They
supply the great bulk of the soldiers; they are
the raw material which the italian Govern
ment employs to fight its battles and defend
its frontiers; turning them in some cases into
heroes, and in others into powder machines
warranted, gun in hand, to go off at a
moments notice. Do not let it be supposed
however, that these sons of the soil are ex-
ceptionally brave and warlike; that they take
particular delight in fighting, or in achev-
ing military glory. They are simply poor
(poor at least in ready money!, aud cannot
buy themselves off from the government
If soldering were matter of choice, it is
doubtful whether the king would receive as
many recruits from the peasantry as would
suffice to equip a single regiment The con-
tadini are peaceful race: docile and pa
tient to fault; capable of great acts of
self-denial, but not addicted to rebellion or
to political or social risipgs, either in
defense of right or in revenge
for wrong; very different class of men to
the peasantry Of Kent and the bluff yeomanry
Of Yorkshire. The Italian contadini enter
the army because they are obliged to do so
OF nd ~ lo1 ho4I ha la
peer or peasant, is liable to be claimed by the
CONSUMPTION as soon as he attains his nine
teenth year, provided he be not MANNED, or
below the average height, or proved to be the
only support and comfort of widowed
mother. OF course the peer is bought off
from the rank and file; he is enabled to enter
the army as an officer if he be so inclined, but
ence the fine is paid he is exempt from the
CONSUMPTION, and his government must look
elsewhere for his substitute. The peasantry
are thus called into requisition twice over
| once for themselves, and once for their
fine paying neighbors. But they reap
| many advantages from their forced service
in the camp; they learn Italian; they become
civilized: they go back to their native viii
lagos Cat the age of twenty-fve) with an ac-
| quired taste for books and letter writing, and
are looked upon as gentlemen-perhaps as
! heroes-by their old associates.
A considerable number of the non-rsaders
in Italy are good story tellers and reciters of
ballads, and some of them make what is
called poetry on their own account This is
particularly the case in the South and in
some of the central provinces, where educa-
tion of a practical kind has (until recently
! been much neglected. Where schools -four
ish, philosophy, sometimes called
mother-wit, is generally found to be on the
decline. Old women lose their importance;
old men look to their sons and daughters, and
not to the priest, for instruction. No more
| peasants, brooding over the old classics, make
reputation as local poets; no more village
sybils thunder forth anathemas in blank
verse, or lull their children, or their chill
dren's children, to sleep with cradle-songs in
seventy or eighty verses, interSpcrsed with
Litanies and Ave Marias To find such GUS
toms nowadays you must go to secluded
spots, far away from the track of the school
master; to romantic hills and valleys where
the priest is still supreme to villages sus-
pended from the crags like eagles nests, and
supposed Ibut not proved to have been built
at the breaking up of the Roman empire by
feudal chiefs, or robbers who were making
war on their sovereign. 1t would almost
appear as if poetry of a certain class can
not exist in an enlightened age. Ivy looks
best on ruin; ballads do not flourish in an
age of newspapers. Perhaps it is because
ballads, being in one sense an inferior kind
of newspaper, are driven out of the market
by the real article. Look at education, what
it is doing in Italy how it is breaking the
soil (like large steam plough, and preparing
the country for a new harvest But in re-
moving the rubbish and distractions which
beset its path, it removes many beautiful
things; not alone the weeds of ignorance and