“What a collocation, not merely of the extremes of human condition, but of almost every interposed gradation!” thought I, as, sated with the multiform instances presented in the concourse, and half bewildered with the medley of sights and sounds--the glittering ostentation of the glaring shops, the hum and tramp of the jostling crowd, the din and rattle of ceaseless vehicles, from the lumbering dray to the elastic carriage, the oft-mingled appeal of importunate mendicants, and, not least confounding, the sleet-laden and staggering blasts that met me with wild caprice at almost every corner--I gladly turned aside into a more sheltered and less frequented street, to pursue a route of greater ease, though at the expense of a greater circuit. But misery in the aggregate can generally be encountered with less disturbance than when submitted to in the case of solitary sufferers; and before I had proceeded half the length of a private and comparatively deserted street, I had more effective calls upon my charity--there was at that time no legal provision for the necessitous--than when passing among the abounding instances of destitution I had just witnessed. My stock of small change, and I must add, co-equally therewith, that of my patience too, was nearly exhausted, when my eye fell upon the figure of a young lad, who stood indifferently sheltered from the wind under the projected doorway of an uninhabited house. I had made up my mind to the customary solicitation: but he seemed so abstracted as not to notice my approach, and, pitying the forlorn looking youth, and wondering at his forbearance, I walked slowly past, to give him an opportunity. I found him to be an organ-player, for the instrument, unslung from his shoulders, rested upon the flag at his feet, and a brief notice of his collapsed but characteristic features showed him to be an Italian. A shivering marmoset, partly covered by his jacket, was lodged on the hollow of one arm, while the other, resting on his raised knee, supported his head, as, unconscious of my proximity and observation, he gazed fixedly upon the ground. The sight of mute personal privation and friendless loneliness would at such a crisis have been influential enough to stir up whatever humanity one had, but when witnessed in a stranger from a far land, in one, too, nurtured under the sapphire skies and blissful clime of Italy, and withering now by a dismal change beneath such dense and murky clouds, and such a pitiless and scourging breeze, the demand on one’s kindly offices was irresistible, and, drawing near to the desolate lad, I accompanied a small gift with a few words in his own most musical and thrilling tongue. He started from his musing posture as the electric syllables struck upon his ear, and, as he gazed with keen enthusiasm upon me, the blood mantled vividly upon his chilled and weather-wrinkled cheek, while with grateful but melancholy earnestness he poured out his thanks.