mighty desolation of the old city of Romulus, stands the most wonderful
monument, perhaps, in the world, of imperial magnificence--the Flavian
Amphitheatre, to which, it has been believed, the colossal statue of the
worst of emperors gave that name (the Colosseum), allied with the least
ennobling remembrances yet giving food to the loftiest thoughts. The
least ennobling remembrances; for what can be more degrading than the
amusements of a degraded people, who reserved meekness for their tyrants,
and lavished ferocity on their shows? From that of the wild beast to that
of the Christian martyr, blood has been the only sanctification of this
temple to the Arts. The history of the Past broods like an air over those
mighty arches; but Memory can find no reminiscence worthy of the spot.
The amphitheatre was not built until history had become a record of the
vice and debasement of the human race. The Faun and the Dryad had
deserted the earth, no sweet superstition, the faith of the grotto and the
green hill, could stamp with a delicate and undying spell the labours of
man. Nor could the ruder but august virtues of the heroic age give to the
tradition of the arch and column some stirring remembrance or exalting
thought. Not only the warmth of fancy, but the greatness of soul was
gone; the only triumph left to genius was to fix on its page the gloomy
vices which made the annals of the world. Tacitus is the Historian of the
Colosseum. But the very darkness of the past gives to the thoughts
excited within that immense pile a lofty but mournful character. A sense
of vastness--for which, as we gaze, we cannot find words, but which
bequeaths thoughts that our higher faculties would not willingly
forego--creeps within us as we gaze on this Titan relic of gigantic crimes
for ever passed away from the world.

And not only within the scene, but around the scene, what voices of old
float upon the air? Yonder the triumphal arch of Constantine, its
Corinthian arcades, and the history of Trajan sculptured upon its marble;