It is needless to say that there is a strongly marked note of difference between the melancholy and finely sensitive songs of the people of Brittany and the gay and joyous chants and ballads of those of Gascony and Provence. It would be inevitable from the widely different natures of the two people, and their origin from distinct and strongly divergent native stocks. But this distinction goes further, and marked shades of difference in feeling and sentiment may be found in the character and temperament of the folk-songs and music of the inhabitants of the same province, who are of common origin and consanguinity, with the same native language, and the same habits and customs. This is due in a great measure to a difference in their surroundings, and the influence of external nature, whether gay or morose, fertile or barren, upon the minds and characters of the people. Thus in his splendid collection of the Chants and Chansons Populaires des Provinces de l'Ouest, M. Jerome Burgeaud tells us that the plaintive and melancholy airs of the inhabitants of the deep woods and heavy marshes of La Vendee become gay and cheerful in Poitou, and sparkle with brilliant mirth in Saintonge and the Angumois, without changing their notes or form, simply from the difference in the scenery and its influence upon the spirits of the people. The ancient Poitou, comprising the upper portion of the region between the Loire and Garonne, is full of smiling and rich fields, where the grapes burgeon in deep black clusters, and the yellow wheat-ears hang heavy and full, and the warm sun and the savory air fill the blood of the people with lightness and gayety. They are not so ebullient and joyous, it may be, as the inhabitants of the still warmer and more smiling regions of Gascony and Languedoc, but the contrast is very marked between them and their northern neighbors, whose very mirth has a melancholy tinge, and in whom even drunkenness is a protest against sorrow rather than the natural extravagance of light-heartedness. The Poitevin peasant is naturally gay, and his light-heartedness is manifested in the great number, as well as in the good humor and cheerfulness, of his folk-songs. Of course the common sorrows of mankind weigh upon him; he feels the stings of poverty and the pains and sordidness of labor; the conscription tears him from his home and his beloved; and he experiences the tragedies of love and death. These things stir his mind and find a place in his folk-songs, but the prevailing spirit which governs his expression in music and song is not of melancholy brooding and sorrow, like that of his Celtic neighbors, but gayety and joyousness. He finds the smiling world a pleasant place to live in; his love is the natural and happy ebullition of his warm temperament; and his experiences of life are cheerful.