CHAPTER IV. THE ROMAN PEOPLE.
"Senatus Populusque Romanus." The phrase sounds strangely, in my ears,
like the accents of an unknown language or the burden of a half-forgotten
melody. In those four initial letters there seems to me always to lie
embodied an epitome of the world's history--the rise and decline and fall
of Rome. On the escutcheons of the Roman nobles, the S.P.Q.R. are still
blazoned forth conspicuously, but where shall we look for the realities
expressed by that world-famed symbol? It is true, the Senate is still
represented by a single Senator, nominated by the Pope, who drives in a
Lord Mayor's state coach on solemn occasions; and regularly, on the first
night of the opera season, sends round ices, as a present to the favoured
occupants of the second and third tiers of boxes at the "Apollo." This
gentleman, by all the laws of senatorial succession, is the undoubted
heir and representative of the old Roman Senate, who sat with their togas
wrapped around them, waiting for the Gaul to strike; but alas, the
"Populus Romanus" has left behind him neither heir nor descendant.
Yet surely, if anything of dead Rome be still left in the living city, it
should be found in the Roman people. In the _Mysteres du Peuple_ of
Eugene Sue, there is a story, that to the Proletarian people, the sons of
toil and labour, belong genealogies of their own, pedigrees of families,
who from remote times have lived and died among the ranks of industry.
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