2. The monkey-organist is generally a native of Switzerland or the
Tyrol. He carries a worn-out, doctored, and flannel-swathed
instrument, under the weight of which, being but a youth, or very
rarely an adult, he staggers slowly along, with outstretched back and
bended knees. On the top of his old organ sits a monkey, or sometimes
a marmoset, to whose queer face and queerer tricks, he trusts for
compensating the defective quality of his music. He dresses his
shivering brute in a red jacket and a cloth cap; and, when he can, he
teaches him to grind the organ, to the music of which he will himself
dance wearily. He wears an everlasting smile upon his countenance,
indicative of humour, natural and not assumed for the occasion: and
though he invariably unites the profession of a beggar with that of
monkey-master and musician, he has evidently no faith in a melancholy
face, and does not think it absolutely necessary to make you
thoroughly miserable in order to excite your charity. He will leave
his monkey grinding away on a door-step, and follow you with a
grinning face for a hundred yards or more, singing in a kind of
recitative: 'Date qualche cosa, signer! per amor di Dio, eccellenza,
date qualche cosa!' If you comply with his request, his voluble thanks
are too rapid for your comprehension; and if you refuse, he laughs
merrily in your face as he turns away to rejoin his friend and
coadjutor. He is a favourite subject with the young artists about
town, especially if he is very good-looking, or, better still,
excessively ugly; and he picks up many a shilling for sitting,
standing, or sprawling on the ground, as a model in the studio. It
sometimes happens that he has no organ--his monkey being his only
stock in trade. When the monkey dies--and one sees by their melancholy
comicalities, and cautious and painful grimaces, that the poor brutes
are destined to a short time of it--he takes up with white mice, or,
lacking these, constructs a dancing-doll, which, with the aid of a