rcuiK' 
on 
.$96* THE COLISEUM AT HOME. 
cylinder of eight stories, each adorned with a 
columns, rising one above anotlier. It inclines so 
one side from the perpendicular, that in dropping Pi , |(i 
met from the top, which is 188 feet in height, it f® 
feet from the base. Much pains have been taken bV 
noisseurs to prove that this was done purposely by 
chite ct ; but it is evident that the inclination has 
from another cause, namely, from an accidental subsw^^^^ 
of the foundation on that side. The pillars are there ^ 
siderably feunk ; and this is also the case with tlie "jj 
threshold of ambition, meant to shew how far he c 
with safety deviate from the perpendicular, and 
)f his art, he would have sho> , ^ 
play a novel specimen of , ^ 
the pilasters on that side, so as to exhibit them 
without the appearance of sinking. 
id 
tir*' 
THE COLISEUM AT ROME. 
On approaching the majestic ruins of this vast a™P!’* c®'' 
tre, the most stupendous work of the kind antiqn' ^ 
boast, a sweet and gently-moving astonishment is *■” .^rd* 
sensation whicli seizes the beholder ; and soon aflsj’ ' 'p 
the grand spectacle swims before him like a 
give an adequate idea of this sublime building, is ® j . -jji' 
which the pan is unequal : it must be seen to be •'jiid 
preciated. It is upwards of 1 COO feet in circumfc‘5’' j'jjy > 
of such an elevation that it has been justly obssf^^ .gp 
writer, Ammianus, “ the human eye scarcely gtid 
height.” Nearly the one half of the external 
remains, consisting of four tiers of arcades, gO" 
colunns of four orders, the Doric, Ionian, Corinth' 
Con.posite. Its extent may, as well as its elevatm") 
tiraated by the number "of spectators it contained* ® . jia® 
ing, according to some accounts, to eighty thousa 
agreeably to others, to one hundred thousand. f®' 
Thirty thousand captive Jews are said to hav® jj, tw 
gaged by Vespasian, whose nameitoccasionally b®* ,’lis®''^' 
construction of this vast edifice; and they hav® no w 
dited their forefathers, the builders of Solomon s , til .< 
the performance. It was not finished, liowever* 
reign of his son 1 itus, who, on the first day ot ® ' 
opened introduced into the jarena not less than 
