of government."

The revival of this speech could not fail to interest lovers of
literature. If not a lineal descendant, it is at least a descendant, of
the language that centuries ago brought an era of beauty and light to
Europe, that inspired Dante and Petrarch, and gave to modern literatures
the poetic forms that still bear their Provençal names. The modern
dialect is devoted to other uses now; it is still a language of
brightness and sunshine, graceful and artistic, but instead of giving
expression to the conventionalities of courtly love, or tending to
soften the natures of fierce feudal barons, it now sings chiefly of the
simple, genuine sentiments of the human heart, of the real beauties of
nature, of the charm of wholesome, outdoor life, of healthy toil and
simple living, of the love of home and country, and brings at least a
message of hope and cheer at a time when greater literatures are
burdened with a weight of discouragement and pessimism.

[Footnote 5: The edition of _Mirèio_ published by Lemerre in 1886
contains an _Avis sur la prononciation provençale_ wherein numerous
errors are to be noted. Here the statement is made that _all the letters
are pronounced_; that _ch_ is pronounced _ts_, as in the Spanish word
_muchacho_. The fact about the pronunciation of the _ch_ is that it
varies in different places, having at Maillane the sound _ts_, at
Avignon, for instance, the sound in the English _chin_. It is stated
further on that _ferramento_, _capello_, _fèbre_, are pronounced exactly
like the Italian words _ferramento_, _capello_, _febbre_. The truth is
that they are each pronounced somewhat differently from the Italian
words. Provençal knows nothing of double consonants in pronunciation,
and the vowels are not precisely alike in each pair of words.