128 The Poets Beasts. 



Marvel has — 



" We ought to be wary and bridle our tongue, 

 Bold speaking hath done both man and beast wrong. 

 When the ass so boldly rebuked the prophet, 

 Thou know'st what danger had like to come of it. 

 Though the beast gave his master ne'er an ill word, 

 Instead of cudgel Balaam wished for a sword." 



As an occupant of the stable on the first Christmas Day, 

 it commands deference. Faber curiously and pleasantly 

 explains its patience thus — 



" For long the ass with silent shadowy head 

 Gazed on the infant Saviour. 



And for the ass 

 To gaze on Him who saves both man and beast, 

 Lifted his patient nature to a calm 

 Transcending far the purposes of sleep." 



Allan Ramsay has a donkey that is a very particular fool 

 — " egregiously an ass," as Othello says; but Peter Bell's, 

 on the other hand, is an unnatural monster of drivelling 

 intelligence. Crabbe, however, strikes the just middle in 

 his " Resentment " — 



*' Close at the door where he was wont to dwell, 

 There his sole friend, the ass, was standing by. 

 Half dead himself to see his master die." 



But there were many asses (besides those I have already 

 referred to) of which the world has wide cognisance. The 

 "Bricklebrit" donkey that wept sequins; Ali Baba's drove; 

 the ass with the silver nose that hunted hares, and the 

 little ass which the Queen bore and that itself married a 

 queen ; the donkey-cabbages and the musician of Bremen 

 — yet nowhere in folk-lore is it odious or even unlovable. 

 ]>ut the poets have need of an animal that shall illustrate, 

 as they think, an easy sneer, so when they do not use the 

 owl they use the donkey. 



