I have added the original text of this vocero, to give the reader some idea of the Corsican dialect, and enable him to compare it, if he is interested in such matters, with the Italian spoken on the Continent. I find a great resemblance between the dialect of Corsica and that used by the lower orders in Rome, particularly in Trastevere.[K] All the Italian popular dialects, however, have a tendency to drop or mutilate the infinitive endings, _are_ and _ire_, and to substitute _r_ for _l_. The Corsican says _soretra_ for _sorella_. Philologists have pronounced the Corsican one of the purest of the Italian dialects, and Tommaseo especially has much to say in its praise in his collection of Tuscan, Corsican, and Greek popular songs—which contains also, though in a defective form, a number of Corsican dirges, with elucidations. In this book he calls the Corsican dialect "a powerful language, and of all the dialects of the Italian tongue, one of the most thoroughly Italian." It seems to me to be genuine gold compared with the _patois_ of the Piedmontese and Lombards, and the dialects of Parma and Bologna. Even from the single specimen communicated, the reader will see that the language of the Corsicans, though no doubt one of the lower forms of Italian, is soft and graceful. FOOTNOTES: [A] See Browning's Ballad of "The Red Piper of Hameln." [B] Blackie's translation. [C] Blackie. [D] An analogous interjection in English is _tut! tut!_ which is an expression of annoyance merely, and not of suffering; in Scotch _hootoot!_—_Tr._ [E] Cowper's translation. [F] A specimen of the Roman nænia has already been given, with a view to its being remembered in connexion with the present subject. I refer to Seneca's dirge on Claudius, which is, however, strictly speaking, parodistic. [G] _Siliqua_, in Latin, the pod or husk of any leguminous plant.—_Tr._ [H] Of the numerous dirges given by the author, a few of the more characteristic have been selected as likely to furnish an idea of the Corsican Vocero.—_Tr._ [I] This wild song of vengeance, which is popular in Corsica, is said to have been composed by the mistress of a certain friar (!!)—a friend of Cæsario's. As the ballad predicts, the Paolo therein mentioned—a relative of the fallen men, afterwards avenged them; he then took to the bush, and after living some years as bandit, fell into the hands of justice.