how many generations.  In either case there seems to be an intimate connection between the music and the spirit of the public for which it is provided.  The peasant of the Campagna and of the Latian, Alban and Sabine hills takes his pleasure, even that of the dance, as an impertinent Frenchman said of us Anglo-Saxons, moult tristement.  That indescribable air of sadness which, as so many observers have concurred in noting, broods over the district which they inhabit seems to have communicated itself to the inmost nature and character of the populations.  They are a stern, sad, sombre and silent race, for what I have said above of a tendency to noisiness and vociferation must be understood to apply to the town-populations only.  Their dance is generally much slower than that of the city-folk.  In these latter days increased communication has taught some of them to assimilate their dancing with more or less successful imitation to the waltz, but in many cases these parties of peasants may still be seen practicing the old dances, now wholly unknown in the city.  But whether they are keeping to their old figures and methods or endeavoring to follow new ones, the difference in their bearing is equally striking.  The dancing of peasants must necessarily be for the most part heavy and awkward, but despite this the men of the Campagna and the hills are frequently not without a certain dignity of bearing, and the women often, though perhaps not quite so frequently, far from devoid of grace.  Especially may the former quality be observed if, as is likely, the dancers belong to the class of mounted herdsmen, who pass their lives on horseback, and whose exclusive duty it is to tend the herds of half-wild cattle that roam over the plains around Rome.  These are the “butteri” of whom I wrote on a former occasion in these pages—­the aristocracy of the Campagna.  And it is likely that dancers on the Piazza Navona on a Befana night should belong to this class, for the Campagna shepherd is probably too poor, too abject and too little civilized to indulge in any such pastime.

Little of either grace or dignity will be observed in the Terpsichorean efforts of the Roman plebs of the present day.  Lightness, brio, enjoyment and an infinite amount of “go” may be seen, and plenty of laughter heard, and “lazzi”—­sallies more or less imbued with wit, or at least fun, and more or less repeatable to ears polite.  But there is a continual tendency in the dancing to pass into horse-play and romping which would not be observed among the peasantry.  In a word, there is a touch of blackguardism in the city circles, which phase could not with any justice or propriety be applied to the country parties.