ed "The Noblenesse
of the Asse; a Work Rare, Learned, and Excellent": "He refuseth no
burden; he goes whither he is sent, without any contradiction. He lifts
not his foote against any one; he bytes not; he is no fugitive, nor
malicious affected. He doth all-things in good sort, and to his liking
that hath cause to employ him. If strokes be given him, he cares not for
them." True, the ass is not much given to kicking or biting, but he has
an awkward knack of quietly lying down when he is indisposed to work,
and of rolling over with equal quietude if a rider happens to be on his
back. But the old author is so enchanted with the "asse" that he does
not stay to notice this scurvy trick. He even goes on to express his
liking for the ass's bray, calling Neddy "a rare musitian," and saying
that "to heare the musicke of five or six voices changed to so many of
asses is amongst them to heare a song of world without end."

Sterne, in his "Sentimental Journey," has a chapter entitled "The
Dead Ass," wherein the animal is lifted into the sphere of pathos. And
lastly, Coleridge has some very pious musings on an ass, wherein the
animal is lifted into the sphere of religion.

Now, dear reader, you begin to see the drift of this long exordium,
although my purpose was indeed twofold. First, I wished, after the
example of my betters in literature, to give you a slight glimpse of the
immense extent of my learning. Secondly, I wished to lead you through
the various stages of literary treatment of the ass, from the comic
to the pathetic, and finally to-the religious, in order that you might
approach in a proper frame of mind the consideration of Balaam's ass,
who is the most remarkable of all the four-legged asses mentioned in the
Bible. There were others. Asses were being sought by Saul, the son
of Kish, when he found a kingdom of subjects instead. Jesus rode into
Jerusalem on an ass, and also apparently on a colt, having probably
one leg over each. With the jawbone of an ass Samson slew a thousand
Philistines; and if the rest of the animal accorded with that particular
bone, he must have been a tough ass indeed. But all these are of little
interest or importance beside the wonderful ass of the prophet
Balaam, whose history is contained, with that of his master, in the
twenty-second, twenty-third, and twenty-fourth chapters of the Book of
Numbers.

Soon after the Wandering Jews in the desert were plagued by "fiery
serpents" for asking M