know how to describe the impression, but it seemed to me as if something strong and stately, like the slow and majestic march of a mighty whirlwind, swept around those eternal towers; the storms of time, that had prostrated the proudest monuments of the world, seemed to have left their vibrations in the still and solemn air; ages of history passed before me; the mighty procession of nations, kings, consuls, emperors, empires, and generations had passed over that sublime theater.  The fire, the storm, the earthquake, had gone by; but there was yet left the still, small voice like that at which the prophet “wrapped his face in his mantle.”

I went to see the Colosseum by moonlight.  It is the monarch, the majesty of all ruins; there is nothing like it.  All the associations of the place, too, give it the most impressive character.  When you enter within this stupendous circle of ruinous walls and arches, and grand terraces of masonry, rising one above another, you stand upon the arena of the old gladiatorial combats and Christian martyrdom; and as you lift your eyes to the vast amphitheater, you meet, in imagination, the eyes of a hundred thousand Romans, assembled to witness these bloody spectacles.  What a multitude and mighty array of human beings; and how little do we know in modern times of great assemblies!  One, two, and three, and, at its last enlargement by Constantine, more than three hundred thousand persons could be seated in the Circus Maximus!

But to return to the Colosseum; we went up under the conduct of a guide upon the walls and terraces, or embankments, which supported the ranges of seats.  The seats have long since disappeared; and grass overgrows the spots where the pride, and power, and wealth, and beauty of Rome sat down to its barbarous entertainments.  What thronging life was here then!  What voices, what greetings, what hurrying footsteps upon the staircases of the eighty arches of entrance!  And now, as we picked our way carefully through the decayed passages, or cautiously ascended some moldering flight of steps, or stood by the lonely walls—­ourselves silent, and, for a wonder, the guide silent, too—­there was no sound here but of the bat, and none came from without but the roll of a distant carriage, or the convent bell from the summit of the neighboring Esquiline.

It is scarcely possible to describe the effect of moonlight upon this ruin.  Through a hundred lonely arches and blackened passageways it streamed in, pure, bright, soft, lambent, and yet distinct and clear, as if it came there at once to reveal, and cheer, and pity the mighty desolation.  But if the Colosseum is a mournful and desolate spectacle as seen from within—­without, and especially on the side which is in best preservation, it is glorious.  We passed around it; and, as we looked upward, the moon shining through its arches, from the opposite side, it appeared as if it were the coronet of the heavens, so vast was it—­or like a glorious crown upon the brow of night.