It would appear from the curious sentence copied above, that no longer ago than five centuries and a half, the feat which is pictured to the spectator in a fac-simile of the original drawing was regarded as an event of extremely improbable occurrence. The inference indeed may be, that it was deemed an impossibility. The prayer of the inscription is, "May this book be undamaged for ever."— May it be preserved "until the ass ascends the ladder!"
"Till Birnam wood shall come to Dunsinane," is the unlikely occurrence which the weird sisters specify as the omen of Macbeth's fall; and "That will never be!" is the cry of the confident thane. In modern days we wish a man "good luck till he's tired of it;" or "prosperity till the sky falls." The despairing and lovelorn damsel in the ditty sings—
"When fishes fly, and swallows dive,
Young men they will prove true."
And one of the same ballad-family sets out with the affecting declaration, that—
"When gooseberries grow on the stem of a daisy,"
the singer's passion will be no more. These, and a thousand examples of the "Not till then," are but versions of the Hebrew assumption of impossibility, expressed in the grotesque fancy of "the ass on the ladder." But it is clear that Meyer the son of Rabbi Jacob was not in Moorfields last year; it is certain that Abraham, the son of Rabbi Nathan, little dreamed of what would be doing at Pimlico in the nineteenth century; for whether at Mayfair or at Bethnal Green, at Wapping or at Islington, one or both must have seen the impossibility realised, in the elevation of the donkey, before the upturned wondering eyes of a crowd of lingering mortals in the public thoroughfares.