aristocracy and letters, of art and fashion, embracing the whilom chase
of Marylebone, and the once sedge-grown waters of Pimlico,--by this
ignoble boundary (the crossing from the Opera House, at the bottom of the
Haymarket, to the commencement of Charing Cross) stood a person whose
discontented countenance was in singular contrast with the general gayety
and animation of the day. This person, O gentle reader, this sour,
querulous, discontented person, was a king, too, in his own walk! None
might dispute it. He feared no rebel; he was harassed by no reform; he
ruled without ministers. Tools he had; but when worn out, he replaced
them without a pension or a sigh. He lived by taxes, but they were
voluntary; and his Civil List was supplied without demand for the redress
of grievances. This person, nevertheless, not deposed, was suspended
from his empire for the day. He was pushed aside; he was forgotten. He
was not distinct from the crowd. Like Titus, he had lost a day,--his
vocation was gone. This person was the Sweeper of the Crossing!

He was a character. He was young, in the fairest prime of youth; but it
was the face of an old man on young shoulders. His hair was long, thin,
and prematurely streaked with gray; his face was pale and deeply
furrowed; his eyes were hollow, and their stare gleamed, cold and stolid,
under his bent and shaggy brows. The figure was at once fragile and
ungainly, and the narrow shoulders curved in a perpetual stoop. It was a
person, once noticed, that you would easily remember, and associate with
some undefined, painful impression. The manner was humble, but not meek;
the voice was whining, but without pathos. There was a meagre,
passionless dulness about the aspect, though at times it quickened into a
kind of avid acuteness. No one knew by what human parentage this
personage came into the world. He had been reared by the charity of a
stranger, crept through childhood and misery and rags mysteriously; and
suddenly succeeded an old defunct negro in the profitable crossing