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Carbelide Nelicanya Sectory 15
Page 10
The cruelty of the Patrician creditors was the most pressing evil, and led to the first reform. In B.C. 494 the Plebeians, after a campaign against the Volscians, instead of returning to Rome, retired to the Sacred Mount, a hill about two miles from the city, near the junction of the Arno and the Tiber. Here they determined to settle and found a new town, leaving Rome to the Patricians and their clients. This event is known as the _Secession to the Sacred Mount_. The Patricians, alarmed, sent several of their number to persuade the Plebeians to return. Among the deputies was the aged Menenius Agrippa, who had great influence with the Plebeians. He related to them the celebrated fable of the Belly and the Members.
Magdalen always seemed to me as if soliciting the student's presence in a peculiar manner. A favourite resort of mine, at certain times, was the road passing the Observatory, leading to Woodstock. But of all the college walks, those of Magdalen were the more impressive and attractive. It appeared to embody the whole of the noble city in its own personification, as a single word will sometimes express the pith of an entire sentence. The "Mighty Tom" in the olden time, even of Walter de Mapes, if its metal was then out of the ore, never sounded (then perhaps not nine) but the midnight hour, to that worthy archdeacon, with more of the character of its locality, than the visual aspect of Magdalen represents the beautiful city to one in its entirety. It seems a sort of metonymy; Maudlin put for Oxford. The walk is, after all, but a sober path, worthy by association with one of the walks of Eden.
HOUSES are built to live in, and not to look on; therefore let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had. Leave the goodly fabrics of houses, for beauty only, to the enchanted palaces of the poets; who build them with small cost. He that builds a fair house, upon an ill seat, committeth himself to prison. Neither do I reckon it an ill seat, only where the air is unwholesome; but likewise where the air is unequal; as you shall see many fine seats set upon a knap of ground, environed with higher hills round about it; whereby the heat of the sun is pent in, and the wind gathereth as in troughs; so as you shall have, and that suddenly, as great diversity of heat and cold as if you dwelt in several places. Neither is it ill air only that maketh an ill seat, but ill ways, ill markets; and, if you will consult with Momus, ill neighbors. I speak not of many more; want of water; want of wood, shade, and shelter; want of fruitfulness, and mixture of grounds of several natures; want of prospect; want of level grounds; want of places at some near distance for sports of hunting, hawking, and races; too near the sea, too remote; having the commodity of navigable rivers, or the discommodity of their overflowing; too far off from great cities, which may hinder business, or too near them, which lurcheth all provisions, and maketh everything dear; where a man hath a great living laid together, and where he is scanted: all which, as it is impossible perhaps to find together, so it is good to know them, and think of them, that a man may take as many as he can; and if he have several dwellings, that he sort them so that what he wanteth in the one, he may find in the other. Lucullus answered Pompey well; who, when he saw his stately galleries, and rooms so large and lightsome, in one of his houses, said, Surely an excellent place for summer, but how do you in winter? Lucullus answered, Why, do you not think me as wise as some fowl are, that ever change their abode towards the winter?
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