Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/269

Rh older than the historic event which it seems composed to narrate in the form in which we first meet it. When it passes into a fresh country under its second or third transformation, it is clear that the most scholarly brain cannot all at once track its deviation. Of course there are numerous indications of manner, of metre, of rhyming plan, of etymological idiosyncrasy, etc., constituting the grammar of the subject, by which the student guides himself; but such will-o’-the-wisps as folk-songs may lead the most practised guide to the edge of a precipice.

In truth, however, the grammar of this most perplexing manner has yet to be made, and such conscientious and intelligent investigations as Count Nigra’s it is which go far towards building up such a grammar. If all folk-lorists do not accept all his conclusions in every instance, each cannot but be grateful to him for the grand pioneering work he has done, as few could, and for laying the solid bases of a whole edifice of conclusions in the future which could never have been attained without such primary support. Count Nigra does not come before us as a new man. Though one of Italy’s foremost diplomatists, and lately the representative of Italy at our Court, he has found time for continual explorations in the regions of folk-lore, and ever since the year 1854 folk-lorists have been beholden to his contributions in the Romania and elsewhere of the popular rhymes of his native country. Votaries of the science well knew that the publication of his large and exhaustive collection was delayed for the sake of perfecting his historical and philological conclusions concerning them.

The collection of folk-songs before us from Bas-Quercy is a scholarly work; the author has not gone so deeply into the history of his songs as Count Nigra, but he has given more attention than any folk-lorist has hitherto done to their melodies. This is a singular feature, which may make his collections specially attractive to many. Though not very easy to form an opinion of the sound of a dialect so