Besides, here one feels that the modern Romans are only the children of their ancient fathers, with the same characteristics,--softened, indeed, and worn down by time, just as the sharp traits of the old marbles have worn away; but still the same people,--proud, passionate, lazy, jealous, vindictive, easy, patient, and able. The Popes are but Church pictures of the Emperors,--a different robe, but the same nature beneath;--Alexander the VI. was but a second Tiberius--Pius the VII., a modern Augustus. When I speak of the Roman people, I do not mean the class of hangers-on upon the foreigners, but the Trasteverini and the inhabitants of the provinces and mountains. No one can go through the Trastevere when the people are roused, without feeling that they are the same as those who listened to Marcus Antonius and Brutus, when the bier of Caesar was brought into the streets,--and as those who fought with the Colonna and stabbed Rienzi at the foot of the Capitol steps. The Ciceruacchio of '48 was but an ancient Tribune of the People, in the primitive sense of that title. I like, too, to parallel the anecdote of Caius Marius, when, after his ruin, he concealed himself in the marshes, and astonished his captors, who expected to find him weak of heart, by the magnificent self-assertion of "I am Caius Marius," with the story which is told of Stefano Colonna. After this great captain met with his sad reverses, and, deprived of all his possessions, fled from Rome, an attendant asked him,--"What fortress have you now?" He placed his hand on his heart and answered,--"_Eccola!_" The same blood evidently ran in the veins of both these men; and well might Petrarca call Colonna "a phoenix risen from the ashes of the ancient Romans." But, somehow or other, I have wandered strangely from my subject. _Scusi_,--but what has all this to do with the Bambino?