THERE are men-many men-whose mental callipers grasp only a single idea-the sun of whose thought revolves about, warms, and enlightens, but one little world, that world being the contracted universe (for a universe it is to them) of their own personal affairs and individual interests. From some congenital defect in their intellectual optics as spectacles for the mind remain to be invented, and as the concave lens has not yet been adjusted to rectify the imperfect vision of the soul-they live within a narrow horizon, and browse, as it were, with a tether, having a certain circumference of grass, without the ability to take a mouthful beyond its limits. Nor, indeed, have they any desire for such epicurean adventure. They do not wish even to glance into any field which is not peculiarly their own. The clover which belongs to them satisfies all their wants; and to disturb themselves at all, as to how other people make hay, is a stretch of ambition to which they never aspire. Armies may devour each other-navies may go down and submit their Paixhan artillery to the investigation of the grampus and other martial fishes-empires may rock and reel like Fourth of July revellers in the days when the evidence of patriotism was to make the head heavier than the heels; but the species to which we refer still open their shops with unshaken nerves, take their breakfast with undiminished appetite, and go about their business with no thought but that of making both ends meet. To bear a hand in the grand work of ameliorating the condition of the human race, is a matter, in their opinion, which qualifies one for the first vacancy in the lunatic asylum. They belong to no philanthropic associations to regulate the price of soap in another hemisphere, nor have they ever entered into an

organization to compel the employing shoemakers of the moon to give their apprentices a half-holiday once a week. They are sure that "Convention" must be something relative to Bedlam, and that those who wish to reform everybody else, must stand greatly in need of some such operation themselves. An election, to them, is an annual nuisance-a periodical eruption, made necessary by a defective constitution, and all the meetings which go before, are, in their eyes, merely the premonitory symptom that disease is reaching a crisis. Processions and parades move their pity, and when they think at all about the turmoil of the outer world, it is only to wonder when the fools will have it "fixed" to their liking.

Far different from these is that disinterested body of men and boys who lounge at the corners of the way in a great metropolis-members of the human family who may be said to be always on hand and continually in circulation. They literally are the pillars of the state. They prop up lamp-posts, patronise fire-plugs, and encourage the lindens of the street in their unpractised efforts to grow. The luxuriant trees, which adorn the front of Independence Hall, outstrip all others in umbrageous beauty, because they, beyond all others, have been sustained by the kindness of loungers, and they now strive to return the compliment by affording a canopy to intercept the rays of the sun, and to avert the falling shower, from the beloved friends who stand by them, have stood by them, and will continue to stand by them, in every sort of weather.

In ancient Rome, whenever that respectable republic got itself into a difficulty with those unreasonable people who were foolish enough to wish to regulate their own affairs, and when the storm grew loud and threatening,

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it was sometimes found necessary to entrust all things to the discretion of a dictator, whose duty it was to take care that the republic should receive no detriment." But, without the provisions of law-without the troubles and dangers which flowed from the Roman practice, we are happy in the possession of a host of such officers, unrecognized, it is true, but not the less efficient, whose chief employment and whose main delight it is, reckless of honor and emolument, to take care that nothing detrimental happens to the republic. Their regards are always upon it, in jealous supervision. They are no speculative overseers, who imperfectly attend to exterior affairs, by lounging in slippered ease in luxurious offices, disporting themselves over the newspapers of the day. They are not influenced by the mere report of scouts or the sinister assertions of the interested; but make it their daily practice to hear with their own ears and to see with their own eyes. Nay, they push their zealous watchfulness so far, that they may often be seen in the exercise of their high functions when other mortals, less gifted with discrimination, can discover nothing to excite their notice. When the pavior is at work in the highway, heaving the weighty rammer with most emphatic groan, not a pebble is driven to its place, that the genuine lounger has not marked in every stage of its progress. No gas-pipe is adjusted without undergoing a similar scrutiny, and the sanctified spot where the pig was killed or the hound was run over, acquires such mysterious and fascinating importance in the lounger's estimation, that he will stand whole days in sombre contemplation of so distinguished a locality. Even the base of Pompey's statue, where great Cæsar fell, could not prove more attractive; and Rizzio's blood, which stains the floor of Holyrood, is not more dear to the antiquary than are the marks left by an overturned wagon to the non-commissioned superintendents of the city. Indeed, they have been seen congregated for hours around the house from which the tenants moved on the previous night, without complying with the vexatious ceremony of paying the rent a feudal exaction perpetuated by landlords for the perplexity of the people. Should a masterless hat be found, or a drop of blood be discovered

on the street, it forms a nucleus for a gathering. No matter how slight the cause may seem to the ordinary intellect, these are persons who look more deeply into things, and derive wisdom from circumstances apparently too trivial to deserve regard.

But they are secret, too. The perfect lounger, though prodigal of his presence, is a niggard with his words. It is his vocation to see, and not to speak. His inferences are locked within the recesses of his own breast. He is wary and diplomatic, and not, like other individuals, to be sounded "from the lowest note to the top of his compass," by the curiosity of each passing stranger. He opposes no one in the acquisition of knowledge—he places no stumbling-blocks in the way; but by his taciturnity intimates that the results of his labors are not to be obtained for nothing. It is his motto that, if you wish for information, you must use the proper means to obtain it, for you have the same natural qualifications for the purpose as he.

That this characteristic belongs to the street lounger-we have nothing to say about the inferior class who operate solely within walls-is evident from the fact that it rarely happens, in the course of the most inquisitive life, that any one, on approaching a crowd, can ascertain by inquiry of its component members, why it has assembled. The question is either unheeded altogether, or else a supercilious glance is turned upon the querist, with a laconic response that the party does not know. Ostensibly, nobody knows a jot about the matter, except the fortunate few who form the inner circle, and, as it were, hem in all knowledge. They who extricate themselves early from the interior pressure and walk away, either with smiling faces, as if the joke were good, or with a dejected 'havior of the visage, as if their sensibilities had been lacerated, even they "don't know!" None will tell, except perchance it be a luckless urchin not yet taught to economise his facts, or some unsophisticated girl with a market basket, who talks for talking's sake. who believes that the initiated "don't know"-that the omnipresent lounger "don't know?" It is not to be believed. He does know, but from some as yet undetermined and unappreciated singularity of his nature, it is rather his

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pleasure to be looked upon as ignorant, than to "unlace his reputation" by proving false to so cardinal a point in the practice of his kind as to be a mere bulletin for others' uses. What he knows, he knows-let that content you. He has employment for all he has acquired, which, to outward appearance, would be spoiled by participation; but where, or how, or when, is a problem which remains to be solved.

Unawed by the state of the weather, these watchful sentinels are always abroad, and so far are they elevated above the influences of prevailing effeminacy, that they indulge so little in home delights as to induce many to believe that they dispense altogether with the enervating comforts of a fixed domicile. When their nature must needs recuperate," it is supposed they "rotate" for repose, and that thus, by never couching themselves consecutively in the same nest, they catch abuses napping by their sudden and unexpected appearance "so early in the morning.

But, whatever may be the private habits, entomologically or ornithologically speaking, of "the street corner lounger," he is a self-evident proposition and an undeniable fact. There may be doubts as to the existence of other things-all circumstantial nature may be disputed, but he must be confessed. Go where you will, he is there, and as he is there to everybody, his there must be everywhere, paradoxical as it may seem. His visibility is co-existent with your presence, and it would require the pen of transcendentalism to explain the mysterious nature of his wonderful ubiquity. We have not language to portray the phenomena developed in this respect by a civic lounger of the superlative class; but, in homely phrase, if we may so express it, like a speck upon the eye itself, look where you will, he stands full blown before you. He is rarely seen in motion-never in transitu; but he is at your elbow when you depart, and when you have reached your end, the lounger is at the place in anticipation, leisurely drumming with his heels npon a post, and bearing no traces of a forced march. By what magic process this is accomplished, no one can tell. There is no proof that he travels. There is no physical sign in his appearance to induce a belief that he excels in locomo

tion, or has any taste for such active employment as would seem to be necessary for achieving such results; and so much are the scientific puzzled to account for the fact to which we have reference, that a paper is said to be in preparation for the "Philosophical Transactions," having for its object to determine whether a Street Corner Lounger, in his distinctive and individual capacity, be one or many; or whether the specimen be not multitudinous in an identical shape and image, so that in the same form and as one person, he is gifted with the capacity to be everywhere at once." Every nice observer will be inclined to receive the last hypothesis as the correct impression, for he must often have had abundant reason to conclude that the lounger is really thus, "as broad and general as the casing air"-a Monsieur Tonson who has always come again."

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There are, however, certain peculiarities in this matter which are also worthy of remark-little niceties in the case which deserve their comment. As each man is supposed to have his superintending star-his supervising genius, which, both in weal and wo, hovers about his footsteps or directs his course, so each individual has his lounging "John Jones"-his familiar from the spirit-land of loaferdom. We know him not but in his palpable form— we have exchanged no word of kindness with him-he has no interest in our affairs, nor we in his-there is no earthly tie existing; but when we have once marked our coincident lounger, he is there for ever-our inevitable fatethe everlasting frontispiece in the volume of our experiences-our perpetual double, in sunshine or in rain. Let the fact once be presented to your sensorium that you rarely go to any place without seeing that man," " and your

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doom is sealed. You never will go anywhere without seeing him, either there or on your way there, from that time forth; and when you do not see him, be assured that there is abundant reason to doubt whether you are really yourself, and whether, notwithstanding appearances, you are not mistaken in the person-so that in shaving your apparent countenance, you may have shaved an impostor, and in drinking your wine, you may have been pouring refreshment down the throat of a rogue. When a man is without his shadow,