32;) a rash joke, and a dangerous experiment.

Some princes would have taken his advice.] [Footnote 6111: The most remarkable instance of this, at a much later period, occurs in the person of Merobaudes, a general and a poet, who flourished in the first half of the fifth century.

A statue in honor of Merobaudes was placed in the Forum of Trajan, of which the inscription is still extant.

Fragments of his poems have been recovered by the industry and sagacity of Niebuhr.

In one passage, Merobaudes, in the genuine heathen spirit, attributes the ruin of the empire to the abolition of Paganism, and almost renews the old accusation of Atheism against Christianity.