334 HETv'RT KIRKE WHTTE's REMAINS. 



him, in*a short time it was almost forgotten that such a 

 being had ever been in existence. 



About five years had elapsed from this period, when 

 my occasions led me to the Continent, I will confess, 

 I was not without a romantic hope that I might again 

 meet with my lost friend ; and that often, with that 

 idea, I scrutinized the features of the passengers. One 

 fine moonlight night, as I was strolling down the grand 

 Italian Strada di Toledo, at Naples, I observed a crowd 

 assembled round a man, who, with impassioned gestures, 

 seemed to be vehemently declaiming to the multitude. 

 It was one of the Iraprovisatori, who recite extempore 

 verses in the streets of Naples, for what money they can 

 collect from the hearers. I stopped to listen to the man's 

 metrical romance, and had remained in the attitude of 

 attention some time, when, happening to turn round, I 

 beheld a person, very shabbily dressed, stedfastly gazing 

 at me. The moon shone full in his face. I thought his 

 features were familiar to me. He was pale and emaci- 

 ated, and his countenance bore marks of the deepest dejec- 

 tion. Yet, amidst all these changes, I thought I recog- 

 nised Charles Waneley. I stood stupified with surprise. 

 My senses nearly failed me. On recovering myself, I 

 looked again, but he had left the spot the moment he found 

 himself observed. I darted through the crowd, and ran 

 every way which I thought he could have gone, but it was 

 all to no purpose. Nobody knew him. Nobody had even 

 seen such a person. The two following days I renewed 

 my inquiries, and at last discovered the lodgings where a 

 man of his description had resided. But he had left 

 Naples the morning after his form had struck my eyes. I 

 found he gained a subsistence by drawing riide figures in 

 chalks, and vending them among the peasantry. I could 

 no longer doubt it ^vas my friend, and immediately per- 

 ceived that his haughty spirit could not bear to be re- 

 cognised, in such degrading circumstances, by one who 

 had known him in better days. Lamenting the mis- 

 guided notions which had thus again thrown him from 

 me, I left Naples, now grown hateful to my sight, and 

 embarked for England. It is now nearly twenty-two 



