ANECDOTES OP THE ASS. 51 



the tresspassing principle ; the sagacious brutes, as if sensible of the trespass, are 

 invariably found, by dawn of day, knocking- with the fore foot at the door of 

 their master's hut. 



The humble Ass and his slow and patient labours^ and trifling cost either for 

 purchase or keep, seems to have been overlooked in this country, until the reign 

 of Elizabeth, in the course of which asses came into common use. They have 

 never been equally so in Scotland, nor in the Northern parts of Europe, probably 

 because they are not proportionally useful with the native ponies in those cold 

 regions. They remained with us a neglected and despised, although common 

 animal, until the urgency of public circumstances, not only introduced them to 

 greater and more general attention, but even elevated their race to high honours, 

 of which even the highest bred Courser of the Desert might be proud. War, the 

 eternal delight of Englishmen, and taxes, their glorious boast, had thinned the 

 family of horses, and raised their price and expences to an insupportable height. 

 The Ass, in meek and humble guise, now presented himself, and was universally 

 accepted, in all cases wherein his substitution could be made available. He became 

 the common country express, the orderly riding-horse of the farm ; asses were 

 driven four in hand, in the Stage Cart, and even in the Curricle : but his honours 

 were derived from the fair and the gay, to whom he became the constant pad ; 

 and ladies of the highest rank visitant at Bath, Brighton^ and Tunbridge, em- 

 ployed tall and proper men to whip their asses through the streets and over the 

 hills. Balaam of old, who was a Prince as well as a Prophet, rode upon an Ass ; 

 and old Jack Bannister, a prophet of another description, in his latter days, rode 

 his Ass through the streets and squares of London. 



The Earl of Egremont, long renowned for his splendid style of living, and for 

 his hospitalities ; his extensive establishment for breeding the horse, in which he 

 nobly emulates the most illustrious Princes and Heroes of Antiquity, and his ex- 

 quisite judgment in that animal ; among his other numerous experiments, made 

 a successful trial of Asses to cart coals upon the road. To speak of the Ass as a 

 hackney, his rate upon the road, even in high condition, is seldom more than six 

 miles per hour ; yet such a defect of speed could not well be presupposed from his 

 figure : the shoulder of the Deer also is upright. There have been solitary ex- 

 amples of Asses which were goers. In the year 1763, we well remember to have 

 seen at Mr. Samuel Taylor s, the then Stage Coach Master at Colchester, the Ass, 

 which for the two previous years, successively, had carried the post-boy with the 

 Mail, between that town and the Metropolis, a distance of fifty-one miles. He 

 was a common bred English Ass, but of good size. We have been farther informed, 

 authentically or otherwise, that, many years since, an Ass was matched to run one 

 hundred miles in twelve hours, over the Round Course, Newmarket, which he 

 performed, incited thereto by a mare going before him, which he had covered the 

 previous day. One of the chief recommendations of the Ass, is his ability to do 



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