at he was
placed there to protect visitors, and not to prevent their entrance, and
that I should pass. Finding me resolute (for I knew by experience his
motive was merely to extort money), he softened in his tone, and wished
me to wait until he could speak to the sergeant of the guard. To this I
assented, and, while he was gone, a party of gentlemen approached also to
the entrance. One of them, having heard the discourse between the
sentinel and myself, addressed me. Perceiving that he was a foreigner, I
asked him if he spoke English. He replied with a slight accent, 'Yes, a
little. You are an Englishman, sir?' 'No,' I replied, 'I am an American
from the United States.' 'Indeed,' said he, 'that is much better'; and,
extending his hand, he shook me cordially by the hand, adding, 'I have a
great respect for your country and I know many of your countrymen.' He
then mentioned Dr. Jarvis and Mr. Cooper, the novelist, the latter of
whom he said was held in the greatest estimation in Europe, and nowhere
more so than in his country, Poland, where his works were more sought
after than those of Scott, and his mind was esteemed of an equal if not
of a superior cast.

"This casual introduction of literary topics furnished us with ample
matter for conversation while we were not engaged in contemplating the
sublime ruins over which, when the sentinel returned, we climbed. I asked
him respecting the literature of Poland, and particularly if there were
now any living poets of eminence. He observed: 'Yes, sir, I am happily
travelling in company with the most celebrated of our poets,
Meinenvitch'; and who, as I understood him, was one of the party walking
in another part of the ruins.

"Engaged in conversation we left the Coliseum together and slowly
proceeded into the city. I told him of the deep interest with which
Poland was regarded in the United States, and that her heroes were spoken
of with the same veneration as our own. As some evidence of this
estimation I informed him of the monument erected by the cadets of West
Point to the memory of Kosciusko. With this intelligence he was evidently
much affected; he took my hand and exclaimed with great enthusiasm and
emphatically: 'We, too, sir, shall be free; the time is coming; we too
shall be free; my unhappy country will be free.' (This was before the
revolution in France.)

"As I came to the street where we were to part he took out his notebook,
and, going under the lamp of a Mado