Very few specimens of the attitido have found their way into print; but amongst these few, in Canon Spano's _Canti popolari Tempiesi_, there is one that is highly interesting. Doubts have been raised as to whether the bulk of the songs in Canon Spano's collection are of purely illiterate origin; but even if the author of the dirge to which I allude was guilty of that heinous offence in the eyes of the strict folk-lore gleaner--the knowledge of the alphabet--it must still be judged a remarkable production. The attidora laments the death of a much-beloved bishop:-- "It was the pleasure of this good father, this gentle pastor," she says, "at all hours to nourish his flock; to the bread of the soul he joined the bread of the body. Was the wife naked, her sons starving and destitute? He laboured unceasingly to console them all. The one he clothed, the others he fed. None can tell the number of the poor whom he succoured. The naked came to him that they might be clothed, the hungry came to him that they might be fed, and all went their way comforted. How many had suffered hunger in the winter's cold, had not his tender heart proffered them help! It was a grand sight to behold so many poor gathered together in his house--above, below, they were so numerous there was no room to pass. And these were the comers of every day. I do not count those to whom once a month he supplied the needful food, nor yet those other poor to whose necessities he ministered in secret. By the needy rogue he let himself be deceived with shut eyes: he recognised the fraud, but he esteemed it gain so to lose. Ah, dear father, father to us all, I ought not to weep for thee! I mourn our common bereavement, for thy death this day has been a blow to all of us, even to the strongest men."