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Updated: May 24, 2025
"Do you consider," said Merula, "that your house on the bank of Velinus, which neither painter nor architect has ever seen, is any less a villa than the one you have in Rosea so elegantly decorated with the work of an architect and which you share with your famous jackass?"
"It is not so simple as you seem to think, my dear Axius," replied Merula, "for a place suitable for keeping snails I must be not only in the open air but entirely surrounded by water, otherwise you will be kept running not only after the children but also the parents which you have supplied for breeding."
XLI. News reached Rome that Sulla was encountering the generals of Mithridates in Bœotia, while the consuls were quarrelling and taking up arms. A battle was fought, in which Octavius got the victory and ejected Cinna, who was attempting to govern by violent means, and he put in Cinna's place as consul Cornelius Merula; but Cinna collected troops in Italy and made war against Octavius.
Such were the transactions of that year. Publius Scipio came home from his province of Gaul to choose new consuls. The consular comitia were accordingly held, in which Lucius Cornelius Merula and Quintus Minucius Thermus were chosen.
"My dear Merula," exclaimed Axius, "take me, I beg of you, as your pupil in the art of the husbandry of the steading." "I will begin," replied Merula, "as soon as you promise me a minerval in the form of a dinner." "You shall have it," said Axius, "both today, and hereafter as well, off those delicacies you will teach me to rear."
"As if," remarked Pica, "there were not many of them here in town. I advise you to buy out one of them and learn how to pocket a profit here in town, before you build on a large scale in the country." Of turtle doves VIII. "So much for that then," said Axius. "Proceed, please, to the next subject, Merula."
But a prophet presumably more loyal than pious had announced that the banishment of the consul Cinna and of the six tribunes of the people adhering to him would restore peace and tranquillity to the country; and, in conformity not with the constitution but with this counsel of the gods fortunately laid hold of by the custodiers of oracles, the consul Cinna was by decree of the senate deprived of his office, Lucius Cornelius Merula was chosen in his stead, and outlawry was pronounced against the chiefs who had fled.
It would be amusing to catechise the guessers as to their exact reasons for thinking their guess "likely:" why Hoopoe of John's has fixed on Toucan of Magdalen; why Shrike attributes its peculiar style to Buzzard, who has not hitherto been known as a writer; why the fair Columba thinks it must belong to the reverend Merula; and why they are all alike disturbed in their previous judgment of its value by finding that it really came from Skunk, whom they had either not thought of at all, or thought of as belonging to a species excluded by the nature of the case.
"You will perchance expect this return every year," said Merula, "so I trust that your aviary may not lead you into a loss. But surely in such good times as these it could not happen that you would fail, except rarely, for what year is there that does not see such a feast or a triumph, or club dinners, such as now-a-days consume victuals without number.
"For turtle doves," said Merula, "in like manner a house should be constructed proportioned to the number you intend to feed, and this, like the pigeon house, I have described, should have a door and windows and fresh water and walls and a vaulted roof, but in place of breeding nests the mutules should be extended through the walls or poles set in them in regular order with hempen mats on them, the lowest rank being not more than three feet from the floor, the rest at intervals of nine inches, the top rank six inches from the vault, and of equal breadth as the mutule stands out from the wall.
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