"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.

I feel that I do not and can not describe this mighty ruin. I can o