The arena, or _Plaza_, is most unlike a London Place, those enclosures of stunted smoke-blacked shrubs, fenced in with iron palisadoes to protect aristocratic nurserymaids from the mob. It is at once more classical and amusing. The amphitheatre of Madrid is very spacious, being about 1100 feet in circumference, and will hold 12,000 spectators. In an architectural point of view this ring of the model court, is shabbier than many of those in provincial towns: there is no attempt at orders, pilasters, and Vitruvian columns; there is no adaptation of the Coliseum of Rome: the exterior is bald and plain, as if done so on purpose, while the interior is fitted up with wooden benches, and is scarcely better than a shambles; but for that it was designed, and there is a business-like, murderous intention about it, which marks the inæsthetic Gotho-Spaniard, who looked for a sport of blood and death, and not to a display of artistical skill. He has no need of extraneous stimulants; the _réalité atroce_, as a tender-hearted foreigner observes, “is all-sufficing, because it is the recreation of the savage, and the sublime of common souls.” The locality, however, is admirably calculated for seeing; and this combat is a spectacle entirely for the eyes. The open space is full of the light of heaven, and here the sun is brighter than gas or wax-candles. The interior is as unadorned as the exterior, and looks positively “mesquin” when empty; around the sanded centre rise rows of wooden seats for the humbler classes, and above them a tier of boxes for the fine ladies and gentlemen; but no sooner is the theatre filled than all this meanness is concealed, and the general appearance becomes superb. [Sidenote: BULL-FIGHT SLANG.]