A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MARCUS AURELIUS AND A RECOLLET FRIAR

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      MARCUS AURELIUS.—Now I think I begin to know where I am. That’s certainly the capitol, and that basilica, the temple. The person I behold there is undoubtedly the priest of Jupiter. Hark ye, friend; one word with you, if you please.

      FRIAR.—Friend! very familiar, truly: you must certainly be a stranger in Rome, to accost in this manner brother Fulgentius the recollet, an inhabitant of the capitol, confessor to the duchess de Popoli, and who speaks sometimes to the pope, with as much familiarity as if he were a mere mortal.

      MARCUS AURELIUS.—Brother Fulgentius in the capitol! Matters are somewhat changed indeed. I don’t understand one word you say. Is there no such place here as the temple of Jupiter?

      FRIAR.—Get you gone about your business, honest friend; you seem to be out of your senses. Who are you, prithee, with your antique dress and your Jew’s beard? Whence come you, and what do you want here?

      MARCUS AURELIUS.—This is my ordinary apparel: I am come back to see Rome once more. My name is Marcus Aurelius.

      FRIAR.—Marcus Aurelius! I think I remember to have heard of such a name. If I don’t mistake, there was a Pagan emperor so called.

      MARCUS AURELIUS.—I am he. I longed to have another view of that Rome which I loved, and which was so fond of me; that capitol in which I triumphed by my contempt of triumph; that land I formerly rendered so happy: but now I can hardly think it to be the same place. I have been to see the column that was erected to my honor, and have not been able to find the statue of the sage Antonine, my father. The face is quite altered from what it was.

      FRIAR.—So it ought, M. Damned Soul. Sixtus V. erected that column; but then he put on it a better man than you and your father to boot.

      MARCUS AURELIUS.—I was always of opinion it was no difficult matter to excel me; but I thought it no such easy affair to surpass my father. Perhaps my piety towards him has imposed on my judgment. All men are liable to error. But why give me the epithet of Damned Soul?

      FRIAR.—Because so you are. Was it not you—let me see, I don’t mistake—that so often persecuted a set of folks, to whom you lay under very great obligations, and who procured you a shower of rain which enabled you to thrash your enemies?

      MARCUS AURELIUS.—Alas! I was very far from persecuting any one. I thank Heaven, by a very happy conjuncture, a storm happened, just in the nick of time, to save my troops, who were dying of thirst; but I never heard before that I owed the favor of this tempest to the folks you mention, though, to tell you the truth, they were very good soldiers. I assure you, in the most solemn manner, I am not damned: I have done too much good to mankind, that the Divine Being should do me any evil. But, prithee tell me, where is the palace of the emperor, my successor? Is it still on the Palatine hill? For really I hardly know my own country again.

      FRIAR.—I believe it, truly, we have so improved everything. If you please, I will carry you to Monte Cavallo: you shall have the honor to kiss the great toe of St. Peter; and you will, besides, receive a handsome present of indulgences, which, in my humble opinion, will be very seasonable; for I don’t doubt you stand in great need of them.

      MARCUS AURELIUS.—First of all, I desire you would grant me your own; and tell me ingenuously, is there an end of the emperors and empire of Rome?

      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.

      FRIAR.—What do you mean? Not a philosopher! I am one with a vengeance. I once taught philosophy; nay, better still, I read lectures in theology.

      MARCUS AURELIUS.—And, pray, what may this theology of yours be, an’t please you?

      FRIAR.—Why, it is—it is that which has made me be here, and the emperor elsewhere. You seem to grudge me the honor I enjoy, and are out of humor at the trifling revolution that has happened to your empire.

      MARCUS AURELIUS.—I adore the eternal decrees of Providence: I know man ought not to repine at fate: I admire the vicissitude of human affairs; but since everything is so liable to change, and since the Roman Empire has experienced this wonderful mutability, let me hope the recollets may also experience it in their turn.

      FRIAR.—I declare you anathematized: but hold, now I think on’t, it is time to go to matins.

      MARCUS AURELIUS.—And I will go and be reunited to the Being of Beings.