TWO ROMAN MICE

Rusticus and Urbanus are those two cousins we know familiarly as country mouse and city mouse, appearing here in the original setting of the tale by Horace. Rusticus, serving a frugal supper of oats and chickpeas and piously lighting incense before his household gods, is an affecting contrast to slick toga-draped Urbanus, who adorns his visiting cousin with a banquet wreath and serves him table scraps of asparagus tips, lobster and pomegranate seeds until they must flee for their lives from the master's watchdogs. ""You call this the good life? I don't, so farewell to Rome,"" announces Rusticus with noble dispatch. And Mafilynne Roach's black and white miniatures are unpretentiously witty with a faint suggestion of fresco texture. Classically thrifty and playful.