FRIAR.—No, no, by no means; there is still an empire and an emperor; but then he keeps his court at the distance of about four hundred leagues hence, at a small city called Vienna, on the Danube. My advice is, that you go there to pay a visit to your successors; because here you stand a great chance to visit the inquisition. I warn you that the reverend Dominican fathers are not at all disposed to jest in such matters, and that your Marcus Aureliuses, your Antonines, your Trajans, and your Tituses, and such gentry as cannot say their catechism, are treated by them after a very scurvy manner. MARCUS AURELIUS.—The catechism! the inquisition! Dominicans! Recollets! a pope and cardinals! and the Roman Empire in a little city on the Danube! I could never have dreamt of such things; though I will allow, that in sixteen hundred years things will change strangely in this world of ours. I could like, methinks, to see one of these Roman emperors, Marcoman, Quadus, Cimber, and Teuto. FRIAR.—You shall not want that pleasure when you please, and a greater than that still. You would, in all likelihood, be surprised, were I to tell you that the Scythians hold one half of your empire, and we the other: that the sovereign of Rome is a priest like me: that brother Fulgentius may be that sovereign in his turn: that I shall disperse indulgences on the very spot where you were wont to be drawn in your car by vanquished sovereigns: and, lastly, that your successor on the Danube has not a city he can call his own; but that there is a certain priest that lets him have the use of his capital, when he has occasion for it. MARCUS AURELIUS.—You tell me strange news, indeed. All these great changes could never have happened without great misfortunes. I own I still love the human race, and am heartily sorry for them. FRIAR.—You are too good. These revolutions have really cost a deluge of blood, and a hundred provinces have been ravaged; but had it not been so, your servant, brother Fulgentius, had never slept at his ease in the capitol. MARCUS AURELIUS.—Rome, that metropolis of the universe, is then most miserably fallen. FRIAR.—Fallen, I grant you; but as for miserably, there I must say you nay: on the contrary, peace and the fine arts flourish here eternally. The ancient masters of the world are now become music-masters. Instead of sending colonies into England, we now send them eunuchs and fiddlers. We have, it is true, none of your Scipios now, those destroyers of Carthage; but then we have none of your proscriptions neither. We have bartered glory for tranquillity. MARCUS AURELIUS.—I tried what I could to become a philosopher in my life-time, but now I am sure I have become one indeed. I find tranquillity is at the least an equivalent for glory: but, by what you tell me, I should be apt to suspect brother Fulgentius is no adept in philosophy.