ing was rather to the power of a
single magistrate than to the authority of a democracy or even of an
oligarchy. The other friend, whom I shall call Onuphrio, was a man of a
very different character. Belonging to the English aristocracy, he had
some of the prejudices usually attached to birth and rank; but his
manners were gentle, his temper good, and his disposition amiable. Having
been partly educated at a northern university in Britain, he had adopted
views in religion which went even beyond toleration and which might be
regarded as entering the verge of scepticism. For a patrician he was
very liberal in his political views. His imagination was poetical and
discursive, his taste good and his tact extremely fine, so exquisite,
indeed, that it sometimes approached to morbid sensibility, and disgusted
him with slight defects and made him keenly sensible of small perfections
to which common minds would have been indifferent.

In the beginning of October on a very fine afternoon I drove with these
two friends to the Colosaeum, a monument which, for the hundredth time
even, I had viewed with a new admiration; my friends partook of my
sentiments. I shall give the conversation which occurred there in their
own words. Onuphrio said, "How impressive are those ruins!--what a
character do they give us of the ancient Romans, what magnificence of
design, what grandeur of execution! Had we not historical documents to
inform us of the period when this structure was raised and of the
purposes for which it was designed, it might be imagined the work of a
race of giants, a Council Chamber for those Titans fabled to have warred
against the gods of the pagan mythology. The size of the masses of
travertine of which it is composed is in harmony with the immense
magnitude of the building. It is hardly to be wondered at that a people
which constructed such works for their daily sports, for their usual
amusements, should have possessed strength, enduring energy, and
perseverance sufficient to enable them to conquer the world. They appear
always to have formed their plans and made their combinations as if their
power were beyond the reach of chance, independent of the influence of
time, and founded for unlimited duration--for eternity!"

Ambrosio took up the discourse of Onuphrio, and said, "The aspect of this
wonderful heap of ruins is so picturesque that it is impossible to regret
its decay; and at this season of the year the colo