We preserve Mr Story’s orthography, which, although unusual, is doubtless correct. “The name Colosseum, or Coliseum as it is improperly called, seems to have been derived from its colossal proportions, and not, as has been supposed by some writers, from a colossal statue of one of the emperors placed within it” (‘Roba,’ i. 222). A correspondent of the ‘Athenæum’ (7th February 1863) says that, “in volume II. of the ‘Lives of the Roman Empresses,’ p. 50 (Edit. Naples, 1768), there is a note which gives the reason why the correct orthography is Colosseum. Referring to the completion of the great amphitheatre by Titus, the note has the following: ‘Nel mezzo del Anfiteatro si sorgeva una grande statua rappresentante Nerone, chiamata il Colosso di Nerone, da cui quel luogo prese il nome di Colosseo.’” Mr Story remarks that the present name is comparatively modern, and first occurs in the writings of the venerable Bede. To the ancient Romans the Colosseum was known as the Amphiteatrum Flavium. How profound a calm has now replaced the rush and roar of conflict! You walk down to the Colosseum on one of those soft sunny mornings common in Rome in the early months of the year, and you find it kept by two or three French sentries, and untenanted save by as many dilapidated _ciceroni_, who crawl out of their secret recesses as you enter the arena, and vie with each other for the honour of conducting you over the mighty remains, in which, as Mr Story happily expresses it, “Nature has healed over the wounds of time with delicate grasses and weeds.” The last time we visited the Colosseum, the drummers of a French regiment were out for practice in its immediate vicinity, startling the echoes of the wondrous old edifice with a diabolical clatter of stick against sheepskin. Saw-sharpening, or the simultaneous tuning of one hundred and fifty fiddles, is hardly more vexatious to the nerves than the discordant rub-a-dub of a dozen squads of apprentice drummers, pounding their instruments with a deafening disregard to harmony. Persons are differently affected by the Colosseum, Mr Story assures us—some with horror, some with sentiment, some with statistics. Persons who go there on drum-practice days are doubtless affected with a vehement desire to get out of earshot. Apart from the unpleasant nature of the noise, it, and the sight of its originators, are destructive of the day-dreams to which solitude and quiet in that great dilapidated structure are so eminently favourable. Most persons will admit that nothing in Rome has impressed them so strongly as the Colosseum. A German writer has said that the Americans are particularly affected by it, more so than most Europeans; and if this be the case, it is doubtless attributable to the striking contrast the tourist from beyond the Atlantic finds between those ruins of a mighty past and the upstart edifices of his own bran-new country. The Americans, it is said, were the first to light up