Why dost thou linger, Spring? We are weary waiting;
Grieved and saddened by thy delay;

Oft do we chide thy tardy coming,

Watching so longingly, day by day,

For the grass to grow greener on the terrace,
For the swallow to build beneath our eaves,
For the buds to swell on the low vine branches,
Bursting at last into perfect leaves.

Why dost thou linger, Spring? If through the casement
But a fitful breath of the south wind sighs,

If only a gleaming of brighter sunshine

Mid the gloomy shadows in beauty lies,
Our hearts thrill high with such hopeful longings,
As come to the exile only in dreams,

When his native land in a vision haunts him,

With its breezy glades and its rushing streams.

Why dost thou linger, Spring? Wearily passing
On leaden wings are the slow hours borne,
And gladly we watch each day's declining,
Hoping that thou wilt come with the morn;
That the robin will greet our happy waking,

And the unchained brook with its merry song,
Through the gladden'd fields will be brightly sweeping,
Rousing the echoes that were hushed so long.

Why dost thou linger, Spring? Too long hast thou loitered,
Too long hast thou left us in Winter's chain;

Impatiently watching we wait thy coming,

As the parched bud waits for the gentle rain;
Stilling our heart's breath we list for the tokens,
The welcome heralds that thou art near,
But the muffled snow-flakes so slowly falling,
Or the rushing whirlwind are all we hear.

Why dost thou linger, Spring? Why wilt thou loiter?
O! let us not watch and hope in vain:
We have grown so weary for thy coming,
Gladden the earth with thy smiles again!
Come! with thy soft and transparent leaflets,
Brightening the boughs whereon they cling;
Come with thy flowers-thy holy flowers!

Why dost thou linger-thrice blessed Spring?

Albany, March, 1848.

CLASSIC VAGARIES.

NO. VIII.

THE ROMAN SENATE HOUSE.

You cannot leave Rome without visiting the Senate House: "the temple of everything Romans call sacred, of distinction, of intelligence, of public deliberation; the crown of the city, the altar of the allied nations, the haven of mankind, a seat which the whole Roman people have yielded up to be sacred to one order." For such is the stream of epithets which the enthusiastic Cicero pours out in behalf of the arena, whereupon so many of the triumphs of his eloquence were won. In another place he calls it "the citadel of the world."

But you must not expect to find the senate chamber in the Capitol. There is no apartment set off for the legislative body within its gilded walls. However, the senate does meet there on extraordinary emergencies. When the monster Caligula died, the whole Roman people, disgusted with his enormities, loathed the name of king. The senate took the lead in the popular discontent, refused to assemble in the Senate House of Julius Cæsar, on account of its royal name, and would hold its session in the CAPITOL alone. Within its august area, some senators made a motion to blot out the memory of the Cæsars, and raze their temples to the ground.

Some

Nor need you look for a single edifice, which is, par excellence, the Senate House. Senate Houses are common in Rome. times the senate is even held under the open sky, when some frightful prodigy, as the articulate utterance of words by an ox, is announced. At times also, the tents of an army without the gates of the city form a senate chamber, in which the grave fathers of the state deliberate quite as solemnly as within the consecrated walls of the Curia Hostilia. As a commissioned general, in active service, can never be admitted within the city gates, the senate gives him audience within the enclosure of his own camp, surrounded by an army glistening with brazen sheen. Thus victorious commanders petition to be admitted to the city in triumph, under arches and among decorated houses, and through a cheering populace. Foreign ambassadors, too, are met by a migratory legislature, outside of the city walls, whether they come in time of peace or war.

You have heard of the Senate House of Hostilius; so called because it was built by the third king of Rome. You will look for it in vain. It has been burned down, and with it was consumed the huge picture of Messala's victory over Hiero, who led

the Carthaginians in a great battle which took place in Sicily. On its site Augustus has reared the Senate House of Julius Cæsar. Another was famous once. Cato erected it, and it adjoins his Royal Colonnade, the Court House of old Rome. But the destructive element, which has twice scathed the Roman Capitol, and swept away the Curia Hostilia, has allowed no trace of Cato's Senate House to remain. You know the history of the conflagragration, perhaps. The deadly enmity of Milo and Clodius was at last brought to a fatal issue by an unpremeditated meeting of the twain, each accompanied by an armed escort on the Appian way. Defiances were exchanged between certain of their retainers-the Montagues and Capulets of this ancient city-and blows ensued. The affray soon involved the whole party, and Clodius fell. The partizans of Clodius seized the ghastly corpse, carried it to Rome, even into the Senate House itself. The senate was in session: Coelius was speaking. The infuriated mob, rushing around the market place with flashing swords and unearthly cries, made an extemporaneous funeral pyre out of the furniture of the senate chamber, and burned the body upon it. The consequence of such a frenzy was natural enough. The flames soon wreathed the majestic pillars of the Royal Colonnade and the Senate House, reducing both to ashes.

Do you ask me to take you to Pompey's Senate House? Pompey, like Cromwell, was king under another name, when he filled Rome with the pageantry of his greatness. He has done more to beautify the city than any emperor. But he brought to pass some strange anomalies. For instance, to perfect the coup d'œil presented by his Theatre, he built a Senate House! But do not fancy that the senate is not respected at Rome. The melancholy tragedy of which that very edifice was the scene, is enough to stifle such a thought. It was there that Cæsar fell. It was not until the ambitious emperor showed disrespect to the ROMAN SENATE, that his life was forfeited.

Julius Cæsar had many generous impulses and exalted private affections. But his pride, intensified by a succession of glorious achievements, made him a tyrant. He had accepted a perpetual dictatorship, a permanent consulship, the name of emperor, a statue among the ancient kings, an elevated platform in the theatre, divine honors, a gilded seat in the senate house, a statuelitter at the processions of the circus-an honor due to divinities alone-temples, altars, a shrine, a priest; he had reduced the number of elections; he had appointed officers who ought to have been chosen by the people; he had admitted semi-barbarous Gauls-the Mexicans of the Roman empire-to the rank of senators; he had appointed favorite slaves to be the treasurers and

⚫ National pictures adorned the walls of the Roman as well as the American Capitol.

†This admission of an inferior race to the senatorial body was very unpopu lar. A burlesque law was introduced before an assemblage of the people, to

revenue-officers of the state: he had even given the command of Roman legions to the sons of slaves; he had declared that the republic was nothing but a name, without either substance or form; he had given out that the people should speak of him more reverently and should take his word for law. But, notwithstanding all this, it was not until he had made the senate the victim of his insolence, that the hand of vengeance was armed to strike.

seat.

The senate had passed several decrees complimentary of Cæsar's military exploits, and most honorable to him in every respect. Inflated with arrogance, he received them without rising from his He insulted the concentrated dignity of the state by this act. So sensible was he afterwards of the enormity of his offence, that he retired to his house, threw himself on a couch, bared his breast, and begged his friends to avenge the outraged honor of the senate. That honor was avenged, but not there.

In vain he had surpassed all the generals of Rome in the extent of his conquests, his desperate victories, in clemency to the vanquished and in munificence to his soldiers. In vain he had successfully stormed eight hundred cities, subdued three hundred tribes, and fought at various times with three millions of men in battle array. In vain he conquered the hardy mountaineers of Switzerland; forced his victorious march to the German Sea; crossed the wave to invade and vanquish Britain; humbled the warlike Gauls; eclipsed the glories of Pompey; extended the Spanish provinces of Rome until they embraced the ocean-sands of Portugal; "came, saw, and conquered" the kingdom of Pontus; set Cleopatra on the throne of Egypt, and annexed all Africa to the Roman name. He had insulted the senate and h s doom was sealed.

Do you not believe in the law of retribution? He began his career by appealing to the mob against the authority of the senate. A second injury of that body armed his assassins, and he fell in the Senate House by the hands of senators. He had wasted his country's blood in a civil war against Pompey, and it was in Pompey's Senate House that he was assassinated, and it was Pompey's statue that he spattered with his blood, as he sunk to the floor.

It is true that we have to-day heard his name spoken with rapture by the populace; been present at sacrifices offered to him as a demi-god, and seen many a statue erected to his honor, with a star carved over its marble forehead.

Pardon my garrulousness. I was only about to say, that you can not enter Pompey's Senate House. Since it was the scene of

the effect that no one should show the way to the Senate House to any new senator. Epigrams were current. One ran thus:

"Great Cæsar led the barbarous Gauls behind his victor's car:
He leads them to the senate now, and there, alas! they are.
The Gauls strip off their short-clothes, the leggings of their race,
And don the gold-striped mantle, the old patrician dress."

Cæsar's death, no session of the senate has been held there. It is closed forever.

I had forgotten to mention to you, that the senate can meet only in a consecrated place. Religion is called in to sanction legislation. Even the camp must be consecrated before the senate can hold its session there. The Capitol, you know, has been dedicated by solemn rites to Jupiter, and I well remember some stirring appeals made by Cicero to the senate concerning the majesty of the place in which they sat, when a session has been held in this sacred pile. "To pass a bad decree here," said he, 7 "is to insult the Father of the Gods.

Let us adjust our paper clock of the world to the age of Augustus, and visit the Senate House of Julius Cæsar. It is the fifteenth of March, a day for the regular meeting of the senate. Its sessions are held now by the order of Augustus, only twice instead of three times in a month, as formerly: excepting, of course, those special sessions, which are of frequent occurrence. To-day's assembly is not one of the latter. Had it been so, you would not have heard about four days ago, a crier, marching up and down the forum, reading aloud the emperor's edict, or seen expresses starting off to summon members from the country. Today, too, we would have seen copies of the edict posted up on pillars around the market place.

We have reached the Senate House of Julius, and we now stand between it and the Rostra. The place where wise men deliberate is just behind the spot, where the people roar out their acclamations to their favorite demagogues. Although it is unlawful to hold meetings of the senate and of the people on the same day, yet in perilous emergencies the conjunction occurs. The impassioned eloquence of Cicero has rung within, while a noisy tribune has been haranguing a motley rabble without. "Deep called unto deep."

To admit you, I must assume the power of Asmodeus, as no one but senators, senators' children, and magistrates, are suffered to enter. Formerly, clerks were admitted to report the proceedings, but Augustus has prohibited the publication of a journal of the senate, and has excluded all scribes. However, the journal is accurately kept by senators appointed for the purpose. I ought to have said, that, when a trial was conducted before the senate, no reporters were ever admitted. The "doors were closed." "Silent sessions," or as we should call them, secret sessions, were thus held; not for executive, but judicial purposes.

We will fancy a gallery, if you please, from which we may look down on the Roman senate. How venerable the appearance of the body. It consists, as its name implies, of the seniors of the No one can be admitted to the senate of Rome - as is also true of the American senate—until the age of thirty.* You will

state.

•Doubts have been entertained concerning this fact. We consider Cicero's boast of having enjoyed every office in the republic at the legal age conclusive