Note 86 — 274

‘O Violina, tu hai le gote rosse,’ a very pretty little contrasto bundled by Tigri with his rispetti (Canti p. toscani, p. 284, No 1023, ed. 1856), is a skirmish between father and daughter, after the fashion of our ballad. (‘My cheeks are stained with mulberries.’ ‘Show me the mulberries.’ ‘They are on the hedges.’ ‘Show me the hedges.’ ‘The goats have eaten them.’ ‘Show me the goats,’ etc.) Ferrari, in an excellent paper in the journal referred to above, tries to make out some historical relation between the two. He seems to me to take ‘La Violina’ quite too seriously.