observe some stooping forms and heads bald with age; for the Roman senator is never superannuated. Although the law does not summon him after his seventieth year, to attend the deliberations of his order, he has a right to come hither while the spark of life lasts. He may be brought hither on a couch, as senators have often been brought hither, in desperate conjunctures.

But I see that you think less of the age of the grave personages before you, than of the strange splendor of their appearance. Dressed in uniform as they are, they impress you at once with the unity of the order. What would you have thought when the sen ate numbered one thousand patricians, instead of only six hundred, as now! which last is somewhat less than the present number of members in the British house of commons. This reduction of their number was a wise measure on the part of Augustus. Julius Cæsar had introduced his favorites without any regard to principle, to supply vacancies. Some of these unworthy members were called by the rabble, "senators by appointment of the king of hel!," inasmuch as they claimed to have been made patricians by Cæsar, after Cæsar was dead-a claim hard to recognize, but quite as hard to disprove.

Pardon me: I was speaking of the dress of senators. They wear the gown bordered with purple, which is common to all the superior magistrates, descending to the feet and drawn up into a shoulder-knot. Under it is the tunic, which distinguishes the Roman senator; as he and his children alone can wear the broad stripe of gold or gilt which adorns its inner border. This is sent to the senator as the badge of his office, reminding one of the ribband of an admiral or the cross of the Legion of Honor. When Julius Cæsar was consul, he wore a garment of this species, fringed down to his hands in the most outré fashion, with a slack girdle over it. You observe that the sons of senators, who stand in the rear of the chamber, (Augustus admits them to the debates to familiarize them to the atmosphere of politics) also wear this broad-striped gown; but their stripes are much broader than those which adorn the breasts of their parents. On our way hither we passed several persons with tunics of a narrower stripe. Remember, that all such belong to the order of knighthood.

You observe that the senators also wear black boots of tanned leather, reaching to the middle of the leg. These are peculiar to their order: fastened with four thongs and four gold or silver buckles. The chief ornament of the boots is the silver crescent on the top of the foot. This was formerly the letter C, the initial

on this point. He was made quæstor· whose office was the lowest which entitled one to the rank of senator-at the age of thirty. Of course, he became a senator at that time. Polybius says, that ten years' military service gave a claim to a seat in the senate. As persons entered the army at seventeen. it has been rashly concluded that twenty-seven was the legal age of senators. But all that need to be inferred from his statement is this: a person, of suitable age, who founded his claim to patrician dignity on military services, must have served ten years.

letter of the word centum (one hundred), which was the original -number of the senate under the early kings. But as the number of the senators has entirely changed, the form of the ornament has also been modified, and it is now called "the little moon." It is worn by the sons of the senators.

All these articles of dress are worn by the members of the senate on all occasions; whether when they sit in the front seats of the theatre, or take a dinner at the public expense in the Capitol, on the anniversary of the feast of Jupiter.

The sight before us is one of the grandest ever presented to human eyes. Features of the majestic Roman type, softened and dignified by age, full of intelligence and noble sternness; tall and stately forms, dressed in the simple splendor of the Roman garb; the noblest men of the noblest race on earth, assembled to the number of six hundred, holding as it were the reins of government in their hands; born to rule, and at this very moment training by their example a new generation of native patricians to manage the huge machinery of state, make up a condensed view of moral grandeur, impossible to describe. It is a picture that mere political change cannot destroy. Whether their rights are invaded by an unruly mob, or abridged by a tyrannical king, they will still wear the same look of dignity, of high intelligence, and of exalted courage. They carry their patent of nobility with them, more legible than royal letters, more imposing than heraldry.

It is well for them that they are great by nature and education. For though great, they have little real power. Augustus is gradually contriving to control them. Even now he alone brings before them nearly every subject which they debate upon. He has diminished the number of their sessions. He has forbidden more than a certain number chosen by lot to assemble in September and October. Yet no one was ever more careful to preserve an external deference to this august body than the present emperor. He refers all military appointments to them, yielding them a kind of confirming power. He makes their sons tribunes of legions, or as we should say, colonels of regiments; in order that they become early accustomed to the camp as well as to the court. He every six months chooses a privy council, or cabinet, from their number, whom he consults concerning the propriety of referring certain questions to the senate at its ordinary sessions. When great issues are at stake, he does not ask senators for their sentiments, according to the rules of the house, but of all indiscriminately, as if he desired rather to obtain their candid opinion than their approval of his own.

But I am wandering again. Conversation, you know, cannot be carried on by rhetorical rules, Do not imagine that you see before you an aristocracy of birth. There are here many, plebeians by birth, patricians in rank. Although once senators were chosen only from a privileged order, the descendants of the patricians of the time of Romulus, it is so no longer. All ranks have

sent forth some member to this body. Around you are seen what the Romans call new men, or parvenues. The great Cicero was one: the son of a simple knight. The very name conscript fathers, is significant of the fact, that the senate is not a hereditary body. Many were enrolled or drafted by the ancient father of democracy, Brutus, from all classes, to fill up the places of those whom Tarquin the Proud had slain. These were called the conscripts--a name now applied indiscriminately to the entire senate. There are lords spiritual and lords temporal here as well as in the English aristocratic body. The Romans call the former the "Pontiffs." You will distinguish them by their conical and tasselled caps. They formerly were but about fifteen in number. Augustus has increased these indefinitely. They have a jurisdiction, apart from their senatorial rank, concerning matters involving the religion of the state. They decide whether consecrations are duly performed; whether a god or goddess is a god or goddess, or not; whether sacrilege has been committed in particular cases. Their opinion is then communicated to the senate by the pontiffs in their places, and a decree is passed generally in entire accordance with their decision. As I hinted during one of our former interviews, church and state are known at Rome-that is, a state religion exists here. This religion is in the care of the "pontiffs" or priesthood, and every innovation upon it by unauthorized persons is most sternly punished. It is protected by the oldest code known in the Roman constitution-the laws of the Twelve Tables. This body before us is the legal "Defender of the Faith." Cicero eulogizes this provision of the fathers of Rome. In an oration before the pontiffs, he defended his right to the site of his own house. This the partisans of Clodius had contrived to get demolished, and in place of it to erect a temple of Liberty, in order that it might be sacrilege to erect a dwelling-house on that spot thereafter. Upon certain informalities in the dedication and upon the notoriously bad character of the goddess in question, Cicero founded an appeal to the religious judges in favor of his own right to his home. In the early part of his oration, delivered on that occasion, he used the following elegant language: "Many things, pontiffs, have been devised and ordered by our ancestors with a prudence almost god-like; but their wisdom has provided nothing nobler than the appointment of the same body to be chief in the departments of religion and of the state. Thus have they enabled the most renowned and honored citizens of Rome, by properly conducting affairs of state and a wise interpretation of the laws of religion, to preserve both." The pontiffs determined that the consecration was null and void, reported their decision to the senate and Cicero obtained a decree.

Cicero was pleased with other features in the constitution of the Roman senate; especially with the fact, that its honors were really open to talent and perseverance in every rank. He once made a magnificent appeal to his young countrymen-the future masters

of Rome's destiny-which I never shall forget; and in which he alluded to the opportunities which merit had for success, even in the highest dignities of the state. Would that the political aspirants of our country would believe in Cicero's theory of the true glory of the statesman. "And you, young men!" he exclaimed, "you who are of noble birth, I will stimulate to the imitation of your ancestors; you, who must win renown by genius and worth, I will point to the same path by which many humbly born men have reached official dignity and sustained it gloriously. There is but one highway, believe me, of glory and dignity and honor: it is the esteem of the good, the wise, the well-endowed by nature! to understand the CONSTITUTION OF OUR STATE, most wisely framed by our ancestors; who, when they could no longer bear the yoke of kings, so ordained the annual offices of the republic, that, although the senate was made before-hand the perpetual high council of the commonwealth, yet persons might be chosen to it from the mass of the people; and that access to that exalted post should be clear to the perseverance and worth of private citizens."

Do you ask what qualifications entitle one to admission to the senate? I answer, first, office. All the annual magistrates, consuls, prætors, quæstors and the rest, are, ex-officio, members of the senate. So is the priest of Jupiter. This fact will explain one peculiar feature of the scene before you. In the row of benches below us, which are amazingly long, you see one bench given up to each order of officers. The highest in rank sit farthest back; excepting the consul who presides. Each order is thus arranged. Those who are now officers elect, but have not yet entered upon the duties of their position, take precedence. Next to them, sit the present incumbents of the office; then those who have heretofore held the office. In front of all sit those who are not and have not been officers at all; behind these are the quæstors elect, the quæstors and the ex-quæstors; in the rear of the latter, sit the ediles elect, the ædiles and the ex-ædiles; then the tribunes, similarly classified; then the censors; then the prætors; then those of consular dignity. The consuls, you perceive, sit facing the assembly, on their chairs of state. Those chairs are magnificent, are they not? With a raised step and curved legs, quaintly carved and inlaid with ivory, they are, with their incumbents, the most attractive objects in the apartment. They are placed you see in different parts of the chamber. One is directly in front of the whole assembly; the other in a range with the bench of the tribunes. This, however, is an unusual arrangement.

But was I not telling you the qualifications of senators? Well -money is another and, I may add, that, like age, it is an essential one. No one can be a senator now without possessing a fortune of thirty-six thousand dollars! But Augustus has, in consequence, been obliged to adopt a peculiar policy to bring some of his favorites into this body. You know he has removed many of the miserable apologies for senators whom Julius Cæsar, for rea

sons best known to himself, allowed to dishonor the rank they held. These Augustus has compelled to resign, and when he did so, he sat in this house with a brazen corslet under his gown, and surrounded by a body guard of the bravest and most loyal senators. However, the dismissed members seem to feel very well satisfied by retaining all the privileges of their rank which are not political -as the broad-striped tunic, the crescent on the boot and a front seat in the theatre. After he had accomplished this overturn, he was obliged to fill up at least a part of the vacancy occasioned thereby; so he gave the remaining senators the privilege of nominating a certain number of their future fellow-members. Then he, with the assistance of Agrippa,-noble Agrippa, the Warwick, the kingmaker of old Rome!-selected others. But he found many of his best and ablest candidates too poor to comply with the law, which makes a fortune necessary to the senator. Accordingly, he has contributed to all such from his own resources enough to entitle them to the post. Cicero mentions a friend of his who was obliged to submit to the rigidest economy to keep his fortune up to the senatorial mark.

You will naturally enough inquire, whether money entitles a person to a seat in the senate. Not necessarily; but, as has happened every where, wealth proves to be a cardinal virtue in Rome. It seems to me, that I could point out one or two senators, who have nothing better than sesterces to recommend them for legislators.

Another qualification is military success.* Ten years' service as an officer in a victorious army furnishes a strong claim, in the view of this military race, to a seat in the senate. This folly will, I fear, never be out of date. Still, military genius is often united to the highest qualities of the legislator and the statesman. Cæsar and Pompey are both illustrations in point. But that military popularity should be enough to make a statesman of a soldier, is preposterous. Yet the charm of martial glory is, among Romans, irresistible, notwithstanding their intelligence. The achievements of the youthful Pompey-a kind of Napoleon in the splendid early development of his military genius and in the crushing disappointment, which wound up the drama of his life-so fascinated

In this great hero-season, which our western world is now enjoying, it may not be amiss to give some of our martial patriots a hint from history. Lucius Hostilius Mancinus made the first breach with his command in the walls of Carthage. After his return from the wars, he procured a huge topographical map of Carthage, and the regions adjacent to be made, together with paintings of various scenes and incidents of the seige. These he hung up around the forum, and, sitting n front of them, explained them, adding stories of hair. breadth 'scapes and personal prowess, before a mob of gaping spectators. This affability, says Pliny, secured him the consulship at the next election! Perhaps our own heroes prefer to take a hint from modern customs and, remem. bering that this is an age of scribbling, carry a letter-writer with them. Certainly never was a war brought so near home by the means of countless epistles "from the army" as our present war with Mexico. A surgical report was never more minutely drawn out than are the details of our blood-letting among the Aztecs.