Asinary

Even in societies, where reason in lovely fimplicity beckons for address, and learning offers her brightest treasures for the easy return of acceptance, this prejudice will be frequently found to derive its origin and power from presumptuous ignorance. In spite of the ridicule, or severe reproof, which it always incurs, in spite of its own asinary vanity, or fiend-like deformity, which are ever open to the eye of reflection, it still triumphantly prevails.

Although my subject, that I might be strictly asinary, has led me to a grave and serious treatment, it is not unfertile in more trivial suggestions. In England, where cruelty to animals of all kinds has attained its maximum, this Paria of the quadrupeds endures so large a share of outrage that I have sometimes imagined there must be a special Tophet reserved for its drivers; and as I once fell into conversation with an individual of that class, I endeavoured to explain to him the doctrine ...

The donkeys and mules are of diminutive sizes, but retain their asinary qualities in as great a degree as their patient brethren in the other parts of the world.