remembering long poems, which they recite
to one another, and thus hand down to their
children. They are themselves rude improvvisatori,
and make songs on every event of
which they hear, turning the metre with
considerable skill.

The most eminent of their poets in this
kind are millers, tailors, and a class of men
called Pillaoners, in fact rag-men, gaberlunzie
men. These last, wandering from town to
town in pursuance of their calling, collect
all the small talk, as well as all the political
information that they pick up on the
road, and have in all houses a sure welcome
for their songs and sayings. Autolycus,
who reads to us now like a fiction of
the poet, continues to be a real person in
Brittany.

As Autolycus is always supposed to be
poor, and indeed almost comes under the
denomination of beggar, he is looked upon with a
certain reverential pity, that his conduct does
not always merit. When he arrives at a
village, he does not enter cottages unbidden,
but observes a certain form that has been
long established, and is at no time departed
from. Pausing at a house-door, he says,
"God bless you, people of this house; God
bless you, little and big." The invariable
answer of those who expect a song, and do
not grudge their pancakes is, " God bless
you also, traveller, whoever you may be."

Those pancakes, by the by, deserve a word
of notice, since they are the staple diet of the
people. They are made in large quantities
at a time, placed one upon the other, pressed
closely together, and the pile is cut as wanted,
like a cheese. When a fresh batch of
pancakes is turned out, the event is hailed, in a
Breton household, as a something to be glad
over; and that is not surprising considering
the difference that there must be between stale
and new pancake.

Besides Autolycus the gaberlunzie-man,
there is a set of singers of a better class,
equally popular. These singers are the poor
students or clerks, who are young peasants
destined for the Church. They are called
Kloer in the Breton language, and travel from
one episcopal town to another, meeting in
bands at Tréguier, Léon, Kemper, and
Vannes. To see them arrive in the costumes
in which they left their villages, is a quaint
sight. They still have their long hair floating
down over their shoulders; and, when they
have but lately joined, are remarkable for
their wild eyes full of enthusiasm. The great
ambition of a Breton peasant is to have a son
a priest; and the free life of a Kloer, candidate
for future honours in the church, attracts
youths of eighteen or twenty, quite as much
as the glory promised to a soldier. These
young men are all poets and singers. They
live together in the suburbs of cathedral
towns—to all appearance miserably enough,
as their funds are very scanty, and possessed
in common; however, they do live, and study
properly for the career that they have chosen.
By degrees they lose their extreme rusticity,
in consequence of being received into what, to
them, is good society; and it often naturally
happens that, treated with great familiarity
in many families, a devotee of nineteen years
old meets with bright eyes that tell him to
think twice before he makes himself a solitary
priest. Perhaps he mistrusts the reality
of his vocation, and abandons it. But since
to do this is considered a disgrace, sad
conflicts arise often between duty and inclination,
and the poor young clerk fights a hard battle
with himself, perplexing terribly his unripe
judgment.

If " Heaven has all," he solaces his heart
with verse, and his lays gain by the real
feeling that his regret or his resolution puts
into them. The Kloers never print their
compositions, but nevertheless they have to
bear the brunt of a severe criticism. Critics
are always ready in the tailors and the millers,
who are envious of the superior knowledge of
the clerks. The ragmen, too, if they must be
outshone as bards, have their revenge as
judges. When once the Kloer is an actual
priest, his business is to decry and anathematise
his former life; he therefore takes
advantage of his liberty, while yet the sun
is shining for him. But in his maturity the
Breton preacher I think very eloquent, and
the poetry of his old Kloer days often plays
with a mild light over his religious
exhortations.

The Breton instrument of music is a rebec
with three cords, which serves to accompany
the chanting of these rustic minstrels.
Sometimes the air is composed at the moment,
according to necessity and taste, and the
same themes are constantly repeated, as well
as the same chorus, which is generally
something popular, well known, and liked by the
whole auditory. There is a strange charm
about these songs, which put new thoughts
into old diction,—for the Breton used by the
peasants is the same language as that of the
early bards, although the language of the
educated classes in the province has been
greatly modified. When the people sing the
old ballads of the country, words and
language fit together. No doubt centuries of
oral tradition have worked change in the
original traditions. Some of these are
remarkable. Merlin, of course, figures in
many, as in the old stories of Wales; but a
favourite heroine is no other than Héloïse,
she of the " deep solitudes and awful cells."
She is here transformed into a sorceress of
the very worst description, who, under the
name of Loïza, is repeatedly apostrophised.
The people listen with awe when she is
named, and when they hear the words, " Loïza!
Loïza, take heed for your soul! if this
world is yours, the next belongs to God! '
a shudder runs through the whole crowd.
On days of Pardon, as the religious fairs are
called, these crowds assemble in the squares