Let the Past perish!—­let darkness shroud it!—­let it sleep for ever over the crumbling temples and desolate tombs of its forgotten sons,—­if it cannot afford us, from its disburied secrets, a guide for the Present and the Future.  What, my Lords, ye have thought that it was for the sake of antiquity alone that we have wasted our nights and days in studying what antiquity can teach us!  You are mistaken; it is nothing to know what we have been, unless it is with the desire of knowing that which we ought to be.  Our ancestors are mere dust and ashes, save when they speak to our posterity; and then their voices resound, not from the earth below, but the heaven above.  There is an eloquence in Memory, because it is the nurse of Hope.  There is a sanctity in the Past, but only because of the chronicles it retains,—­chronicles of the progress of mankind,—­stepping-stones in civilisation, in liberty, and in knowledge.  Our fathers forbid us to recede,—­they teach us what is our rightful heritage,—­they bid us reclaim, they bid us augment, that heritage,—­preserve their virtues, and avoid their errors.  These are the true uses of the Past.  Like the sacred edifice in which we are,—­it is a tomb upon which to rear a temple.  I see that you marvel at this long beginning; ye look to each other—­ye ask to what it tends.  Behold this broad plate of iron; upon it is graven an inscription but lately disinterred from the heaps of stone and ruin, which—­O shame to Rome!—­were once the palaces of empire, and the arches of triumphant power.  The device in the centre of the table, which you behold, conveys the act of the Roman Senators,—­who are conferring upon Vespasian the imperial authority.  It is this inscription which I have invited you to hear read!  It specifies the very terms and limits of the authority thus conferred.  To the Emperor was confided the power of making laws and alliances with whatsoever nation,—­of increasing, or of diminishing the limits of towns and districts,—­of—­mark this, my Lords!—­exalting men to the rank of dukes and kings,—­ay, and of deposing and degrading them;—­of making cities, and of unmaking:  in short, of all the attributes of imperial power.  Yes, to that Emperor was confided this vast authority; but, by whom?  Heed—­listen, I pray you—­let not a word be lost;—­by whom, I say?  By the Roman Senate!  What was the Roman Senate?  The Representative of the Roman People!”

“I knew he would come to that!” said the smith, who stood at the door with his fellows, but to whose ear, clear and distinct, rolled the silver voice of Rienzi.

“Brave fellow! and this, too, in the hearing of the Lords!”

“Ay, you see what the people were! and we should never have known this but for him.”

“Peace, fellows;” said the officer to those of the crowd, from whom came these whispered sentences.