sorts of congregations, would have preached to the Rotherham Ass and the Ass would have understood him, or there is no truth in Seraphic historians. Wesley perhaps was not aware that this animal is a lover of eloquence,{...|2}} if we may reason, like Darwin, upon a single case. Ammonianus the Grammarian, Origen's master, had an ass who attended his lectures,. . asinum habuit sapientiæ auditorem, in the words of old Johannes Ravisius Textor. This is but a brief and unsatisfactory account of so remarkable a beast, and luckily Lardner (ix. 80) has found a few more particulars concerning him in Photius. It seems that John the Egyptian was more especially attracted by lectures upon poetry; and would at any time, however hungry, leave his oats to attend them. The Asses of our days are less modest; instead of listening with a proper sense of ignorance to the opinion of others, they take upon them to deliver their own, constitute themselves critics,
