Such were the bloody Circus' genial laws,
And the imperial pleasure.-Wherefore not?
What matters where we fall to fill the maws
Of worms-on battle-plains or listed spot?
Both are but theatres where the chief actors rot.

I see before me the Gladiator lie:

He leans upon his hand—his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his droop'd head sinks gradually low-

filled and surrounded with sixty or eighty rows of seats of marble likewise, covered with cushions, and capable of receiving with ease above four-score thousand spectators. Sixty-four vomitories (for by that name the doors were very aptly distinguished) poured forth the immense multitude; and the entrances, passages, and staircases were contrived with such exquisite skill, that each person, whether of the senatorial, the equestrian, or the plebeian order, arrived at his destined place without trouble or confusion. Nothing was omitted which in any respect could be subservient to the convenience and pleasure of the spectators. They were protected from the sun and rain by an ample canopy, occasionally drawn over their heads. The air was continually refreshed by the playing of fountains, and profusely impregnated by the grateful scent of aromatics. In the centre of the edifice, the arena, or stage, was strewed with the finest sand, and successively assumed the most different forms. At one moment it seemed to rise out of the earth like the garden of the Hesperides, and was afterwards broken into the rocks and caverns of Thrace. The subterraneous pipes conveyed an inexhaustible supply of water; and what had just before appeared a level plain might be suddenly converted into a wide lake covered with armed vessels, and replenished with the monsters of the deep. On the decoration of these scenes, the Roman emperors displayed their wealth and liberality; and we read on various occasions, that the whole furniture of the amphitheatre consisted either of silver, or of gold, or of amber.'-The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xii.

The Circus Maximus, the largest of the many buildings of the kind at Rome, could contain 260,000 or even 385,000 spectators. The gladiatorial shows were continued for several years after the final triumph of Christianity; the other part of the entertainment was exhibited down to a much later period. Nor, indeed, is it altogether unknown, on a less magnificent scale, to modern Europe.

And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,

Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now

The arena swims around him—he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hail'd the wretch who won,

He heard it, but he heeded not—his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He reck'd not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,
There were his young barbarians all at play,
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday !—

All this rush'd with his blood--Shall he expire,
And unavenged?-Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire!

But here, where murder breathed her bloody steam; And here, where buzzing nations choked the ways, And roar'd or murmur'd like a mountain-stream Dashing or winding as its torrent strays; Here, where the Roman millions' blame or praise Was death or life, the playthings of a crowd, My voice sounds much-and fall the stars' faint rays On the arena void-seats crush'd-walls bow'dAnd galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely

loud.

Id.

THE MIRACLES OF ART.

THERE, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills
The air around with beauty; we inhale

The ambrosial aspect which, beheld, instils
Part of its immortality; the veil

Of heaven is half undrawn ; within the pale
We stand, and in that form and face behold

What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail,
And to the fond idolaters of old

Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould.

We gaze and turn away, and know not where,
Dazzled and drunk with beauty, till the heart
Reels with its fulness; there-for ever there-
Chain'd to the chariot of triumphal Art,

We stand as captives, and would not depart.
Away! there need no words, nor terms precise,
The paltry jargon of the marble mart,

Where Pedantry gulls Folly-we have eyes :

Blood, pulse, and breast confirm the Dardan Shepherd's prize.

Appear❜dst thou not to Paris in this guise?
Or to more deeply blest Anchises? or,

In all thy perfect goddess-ship, when lies
Before thee thy own vanquish'd Lord of War?

And gazing in thy face as toward a star,
Laid on thy lap, his eyes to thee upturn,
Feeding on thy sweet cheek! while thy lips are
With lava kisses melting while they burn,

Shower'd on his eyelids, brow, and mouth, as from an urn!

Glowing, and circumfused in speechless love,
Their full divinity inadequate.

That feeling to express, or to improve,

The gods become as mortals, and man's fate

Has moments like their brightest; but the weight Of earth recoils upon us :-let it go!

We can recall such visions, and create,

From what has been, or might be, things which grow Into thy statue's form, and look like gods below.

Turning to the Vatican, go see Laocoon's torture dignifying pain— A father's love and mortal's agony

With an immortal's patience blending :-Vain The struggle; vain, against the coiling strain And gripe, and deepening of the dragon's grasp, The old man's clench; the long envenom'd chain Rivets the living links, the enormous asp Enforces pang on pang, and stifles gasp on gasp.

Or view the Lord of the unerring bow,
The God of life, and poesy, and light—
The Sun in human limbs array'd, and brow
All radiant from his triumph in the fight:
The shaft hath just been shot-the arrow bright
With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye
And nostril beautiful disdain, and might
And majesty, flash their full lightnings by,
Developing in that one glance the Deity.

But in his delicate form- -a dream of Love,
Shaped by some solitary Nymph, whose breast
Long'd for a deathless lover from above,

And madden'd in that vision—are exprest
All that ideal beauty ever blest

The mind with in its most unearthly mood,
When each conception was a heavenly guest--
A ray of immortality--and stood,
Starlike, around, until they gather'd to a god!

And if it be Prometheus stole from Heaven
The fire which we endure, it was repaid
By him to whom the energy was given
Which this poetic marble hath array'd
With an eternal glory-which, if made
By human hands, is not of human thought;
And Time himself hath hallow'd it, not laid
One ringlet in the dust-nor hath it caught
A tinge of years, but breathes the flame with which
'twas wrought.

Id.

MAN'S INSIGNIFICANCY AND THE OCEAN'S

UNCHANGEABLENESS.

ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain :
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore ;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,

The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make