Neapolitan, are extremely beautiful and melodious; yet it is a fact,
that the singing of the peasantry, particularly in the Roman and
Neapolitan provinces, is most disagreeable and discordant. It is not
melody at all, but a kind of wild chant, meandering through minor tones,
without rhythm of any sort or apparent rule, and my daughters say it is
very difficult to note down; yet there is some kind of method and
similarity in it as one hears it shouted out at the loudest pitch of the
voice, the last note dwelt upon and drawn out to an immeasurable length.
The words are frequently improvised by the singers, who answer one
another from a distance, as they work in the fields. I have been told
this style of chanting--singing it can hardly be called--has been handed
down from the most ancient times, and it is said, in the southern
provinces, to have descended from the early Greek colonists. The ancient
Greeks are supposed to have chanted their poetry to music, as do the
Italian improvisatori at the present day. In Tuscany, the words of the
songs are often extremely poetical and graceful. Frequently, these
verses, called "stornelli" and "rispetti," are composed by the peasants
themselves, women as well as men; the language is the purest and most
classical Italian, such as is spoken at the present day in the provinces
of Siena, Pistoja, &c., very much less corrupted by foreign idioms or
adaptations than what is spoken, even by cultivated persons, in Florence
itself. The picturesque costumes so universal when I first came to
Italy, in 1817, had fallen very much into disuse when, at a much later
period, we resided in Rome, and now they are rarely seen.

We hired a handsome peasant girl from Albano as housemaid, who was much
admired by our English friends in her scarlet cloth bodice, trimmed with
gold lace, and the silver spadone, or bodkin, fastening her plaits of
dark hair; but she very soon exchanged her picturesque costume for a
bonnet, etc., in which she looked clumsy and commonplace.

[The following are extracts from letters written from Albano by my
mother:--]

FROM MRS. SOMERVILLE TO HER SON W. GREIG, ESQ.

ALBANO, _16th June, 1841_.

I was thankful to hear, my dearest Woronzow, from your last letter
that Agnes is recovering so well.... We are very much pleased with
our residence at Albano; the house, with its high sounding name of
"Villa," is more like a farmhouse, with brick floors and