.

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.