Far better and more characteristic are the ballad-singers, who generally go in couples,—­an old man, dim of sight, perhaps blind, who plays the violin, and his wife or daughter, who has a guitar, tamborello, or at times a mandolin.  Sometimes a little girl accompanies them, sings with them, and carries round a tin box, or the tamborello, to collect baiocchi.  They sing long ballads to popular melodies, some of which are very pretty and gay, and for a baiocco they sell a sheet containing the printed words of the song.  Sometimes it is in the form of a dialogue,—­either a love-making, a quarrel, a reconciliation, or a leave-taking,—­each singer taking an alternate verse.  Sometimes it is a story with a chorus, or a religious conversation-ballad, or a story of a saint, or from the Bible.  Those drawn from the Bible are generally very curious paraphrases of the original simple text, turned into the simplest and commonest idioms of the people;—­one of them may be found in the Appendix to Goethe’s “Italienische Reise.”  These Roman ballads and popular songs, so far as I am able to learn, have never been collected.  Many of them do not exist in print, and are only traditional and caught from mouth to mouth.  This is particularly the case with those in the Romanesque dialect, which are replete with the peculiar wit and spirit of the country.  But the memory of man is too perilous a repository for such interesting material; and it is greatly to be wished that some clever Italian, who is fitted for the task, would interest himself to collect them and give them a permanent place in the literature of his language.

But to return to our ballad-singers, whom we have left in the middle of their song, and who are now finishing.  A crowd has gathered round them, as usual; out of the windows and from the balconies lean the occupants of the houses near by, and the baiocchi thrown by them ring on the pavement below.  With rather Stentorian voices they have been singing a dialogue which is most elaborately entitled a “Canzonetta Nuova, sopra un marinaro che da l’ addio alla sua promessa sposa mentre egli deve partire per la via di Levante.  Sdegno, pace, e matrimonio dilli medesimi con intercalare sull’ aria moderna.  Rime di Francesco Calzaroni.”  I give my baiocco and receive in return a smiling “Grazie” and a copy of the song, which is adorned by a wood-cut of a ship in full sail.

Here is another, of a moral character, containing the sad history of Frederic the Gambler, who, to judge from the wood-cut accompanying the Canzonetta, must have been a ferocious fellow.  He stands with his legs wide apart, in half-armor, a great sash tied over his shoulder and swinging round his legs, an immense sword at his side, and a great hat with two ostrich-feathers on his head, looking the very type of a “swashing blade.”

The singers of longer ballads carry about with them sometimes a series of rudely-executed illustrations of different incidents in the story, painted in distemper and pasted on a large pasteboard frame, which is hung against a wall or on a stand planted behind the singer in the ground.  These he pauses now and then in his song to explain to the audience, and they are sure to draw a crowd.