ture of a
people was never drawn than yours.'

'All the world,' said the creature, 'knows that Spurius is no flatterer.
I have not only published travels among the Palmyrenes, but I intend to
publish a poem also--yes, a satire--and if it should be entitled
"Woman's pride humbled," or "The downfall of false greatness" or "The
gourd withered in a day," or "Mushrooms not oaks," or "Ants not
elephants," what would there be wonderful in it?--or, if certain Romans
should figure largely in it, eh?'

'Nothing is less wonderful, Spurius, than the obstinacy and
tenaciousness of error?'

'Periander greater than Aurelian!' rejoined he, moving off; 'that is a
good thing for the town.'

As I turned, intending to visit the shop of Demetrius, to see what
progress he was making in his silver Apollo, I was accosted by the
consul, Marcellinus.

'A fair morning to you, Piso,' said he; 'and I see you need the
salutation and the wish, for a black cloud has just drifted from you,
and you must still feel as if under the shadow. Half the length of the
street, as I slowly approached, have I witnessed your earnest discourse
with one whom, I now see, to have been Spurius. But I trust your
Christian principles are not about to make an agrarian of you? Whence
this sudden intimacy with one like Spurius?'

'One need not, I suppose, be set down as a lover of an east wind because
they both sometimes take the same road, and can scarcely separate if
they would? But, to speak the truth, a man is to me a man, and I never
yet have met one of the race from whom I could not gain either
amusement, instruction, or warning. Spurius is better than a lecture
from a philosopher, upon the odiousness of prejudice. To any one
inclined to harbor prejudices would I recommend an hour's interview with
Spurius, sooner far than I would send him to Cleanthes the Stoic, or
Silius the Platonist, or, I had almost said Probus the Christian.'

'May I ask, Piso, if you have in sober earnest joined yourself to the
community of the Christians, or, are you only dallying for awhile with
their doctrines, just as our young men are this year infected by the
opinions of Cleanthes, the next followers of Silius, the third of the
nuisance Crito, and the fourth, adrift from all, and the fifth, good
defenders, if not believers, of the popular superstitions? I presume I
may believe that such is the case with you. I trust so, for the times
are not favorable for the Christians, and I woul