nt to
Africa, and of whom she never afterwards heard tidings; Lucia, by Master
Walker, whose sister was her particular friend; Cato, by John Hunter, a
masterly declaimer, but a plain boy, and shorter by the head than his
two sons in the scene, etc. In conclusion, Starkey appears to have been
one of those mild spirits, which, not originally deficient in
understanding, are crushed by penury into dejection and feebleness. He
might have proved a useful adjunct, if not an ornament to society, if
Fortune had taken him into a very little fostering; but wanting that, he
became a Captain,--a by-word,--and lived and died a broken bulrush.

* * * * *

Perhaps the reader would be pleased to see another of Elia's
contributions to Hone's "Every-Day Book." For, though Lamb's articles in
that amusing and very entertaining miscellany are not very highly
finished or very carefully elaborated, they contain many touches of his
delicious humor and exquisite pathos, and are, indeed, replete with the
quaint beauties and beautiful oddities of his very original and very
delightful genius.

Sterne's sentimental description of the Dead Ass is immortal; but few of
the readers and admirers of Charles Lamb know that he, who wrote so
eloquently and pathetically in defence of Beggars and of
Chimney-Sweepers, and who so ably and successfully vindicated the little
innocent hare from the charge--made "by Linnaeus perchance, or
Buffon"--of being a timid animal, indited an essay on the same
long-eared and loud-voiced quadruped.

THE ASS.

Mr. Collier, in his "Poetical Decameron," (Third Conversation,) notices
a tract printed in 1595, with the author's initials only, A. B.,
entitled, "The Nobleness of the Asse: a work rare, learned, and
excellent." He has selected the following pretty passage from it:--"He
[the ass] refuseth no burthen; 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; and, as out modern poet singeth,--

'Thou wouldst (perhaps) he should become thy foe,
And to that end dost beat him many times:
He cares not for himselfe, much lesse thy blow.'"[B]

Certainly Nature, foreseeing the cruel usage which this useful servant
to man should receive at man's hand, did pr