MIRIAM'S TROUBLE As usual of a moonlight evening, several carriages stood at the entrance of this famous ruin, and the precincts and interior were anything but a solitude.

The French sentinel on duty beneath the principal archway eyed our party curiously, but offered no obstacle to their admission.

Within, the moonlight filled and flooded the great empty space; it glowed upon tier above tier of ruined, grass-grown arches, and made them even too distinctly visible.

The splendor of the revelation took away that inestimable effect of dimness and mystery by which the imagination might be assisted to build a grander structure than the Coliseum, and to shatter it with a more picturesque decay.

Byron's celebrated description is better than the reality.