gesticulating, laughing crowd, listening to an "improvisatore" or
wandering poet--a plump-looking fellow who had all the rhymes of Italy
at his fingers' ends, and who could make a poem on any subject or an
acrostic on any name, with perfect facility. I stopped my carriage to
listen to his extemporized verses, many of which were really admirable,
and tossed him three francs. He threw them up in the air, one after the
other, and caught them, as they fell, in his mouth, appearing to have
swallowed them all--then with an inimitable grimace, he pulled off his
tattered cap and said:

"Ancora affamato, excellenza!" (I am still hungry!) amid the renewed
laughter of his easily amused audience. A merry poet he was and without
conceit--and his good humor merited the extra silver pieces I gave him,
which caused him, to wish me--"Buon appetito e un sorriso della
Madonna!"--(a good appetite to you and a smile of the Madonna!) Imagine
the Lord Laureate of England standing at the corner of Regent Street
swallowing half-pence for his rhymes! Yet some of the quaint conceits
strung together by such a fellow as this improvisatore might furnish
material for many of the so called "poets" whose names are mysteriously
honored in Britain.

Further on I came upon a group of red-capped coral fishers assembled
round a portable stove whereon roasting chestnuts cracked their glossy
sides and emitted savory odors. The men were singing gayly to the
thrumming of an old guitar, and the song they sung was familiar to me.
Stay! where had I heard it?--let me listen!

"Sciore limone
Le voglio far mori de passione
Zompa llari llira!"
[Footnote: Neapolitan dialect.]

Ha! I remembered now. When I had crawled out of the vault through the
brigand's hole of entrance--when my heart had bounded with glad
anticipations never to be realized--when I had believed in the worth of
love and friendship--when I had seen the morning sun glittering on the
sea, and had thought--poor fool!--that his long beams were like so many
golden flags of joy hung up in heaven to symbolize the happiness of my
release from death and my restoration to liberty--then--then I had
heard a sailor's voice in the distance singing that "ritornello," and I
had fondly imagined its impassioned lines were all for me! Hateful
music--most bitter sweetness! I could have put my hands up to my ears
to shut out the sound of it now that I thought of the time when I had
heard it last! For the