IRISH DONKEYS FOR SOUTH AFRICA 59 



almost a sumptuary law, was the advance of the horse to 

 the first place for the use of all three ' estates/ lords, 

 ladies, and bishops, and the total eclipse of the ass. 

 The fine animals kept for the purpose of breeding 

 mules were only mated with other donkeys, for mule- 

 breeding ceased. In the pictures of the procession of 

 the Field of the Cloth of Gold, Cardinal Wolsey rides 

 on a mule beside his King. Our donkeys have never 

 recovered from the social results of the Reformation. 

 From that time till the end of the last century the 

 black-coated, full-wigged ecclesiastic on his cob figures 

 in all pictures of equestrian gatherings and State 

 functions, from the caricatures of Bunbury to the 

 Court processions of the Georges. Spenser, with 

 intentional archaism, represents Una riding beside the 

 red-cross knight on a white ass. It is the last poetical 

 tribute to the donkey paid in the Tudor period, and is 

 more than counterbalanced by the part he plays in 

 Midsummer Night's Dream. No one who reads the 

 metamorphosis of Bottom can deny that Shakespeare 

 makes a * true generalization of character ' in this study 

 of the true inwardness of donkeys, and that the poor 

 man's animal of that time must have been already 

 much the same as he is now. There must have been 

 plenty of good male donkeys in the country for mule- 

 breeding, but the stock has never been replenished or 

 improved. They have steadily dwindled in size until 



