‘To mention no more of these absurd Conjectures, I must here inform my Reader, that by the Body of the Ass we intend to figure the whole Body of Jacobitical doctrine.
‘Now as there was no Symbol among the Antients, of which the Emblematical Meaning was so plain and easy to be discovered, our Party could never have so universally mistaken it, had it not been for that want of Learning among us, which I lamented in my last Paper. Hence being misled by those erroneous opinions, which the Moderns have propagated to the great disadvantage of Asses, the Jacobites have been unwilling to discover any Resemblance between themselves and an Animal which the wise Antients saw in so respectable a Light, and which the ignorance of latter Ages hath highly dishonoured by odious Comparisons with certain Individuals of the Human Species.
‘Thus Homer is well known to have liken’d one of his principal Heroes to this noble Animal; which was in such Esteem among the antient Jews, that he was not only an object of their Devotion, but they are said to have preserved his Figure in massy Gold in the Temple of Jerusalem.
‘If the Transfiguration of Midas in the Metamorphosis doth but little Honour to the Ears of our Symbol, the Story of Lotis which the same Poet tells in his Fastorum, is greatly in praise of his Braying, by which the Chastity of that Nymph was rescued from the wicked Designs of her insidious Lover.
‘In such esteem hath this noble Beast been held among the Learned, that I have seen a Book composed in his Favour and entitled Laus Asini: not to mention the celebrated performance of Apuleius to which he hath given the Name of the Golden Ass.
‘Instead therefore of being displeased with the Emblem, our Party have great Reason to be vain on this Occasion, nor do I think there can be a greater Comparison than of a Protestant Jacobite to an Ass, or one more to the Honour of the former.
‘First, what can so well answer to that noble and invincible obstinacy, which I have more than once celebrated in our Party, as the intractable and unalterable Nature of this Animal, which gave rise to an antient Proverb alluded to by Horace in his Satires:—
| ‘“—— Your Art As well may teach an Ass to scour the Plain And bend obedient to the forming Rein.” |
‘And again in his Epistles:—
| ‘“Democritus would think the writers told To a deaf Ass their story ——” |