Prescription given by Galienus to the ass Brunellus to make his tail grow: 

  “Some marble’s fat and seven fold furnace shade
     The offspring of a male and female mule,
   A little of the milk of goose and kite
     A punchbowl’s racing, and a wolf’s alarms;
   Of dogs and hares alliance take a drachm,
     And kisses which the lark gives to her hawk.”

The ass begs Galienus to bestow upon him his blessing, which he does with mock gravity—­

  “May Jove to thee a thousand omens give,
   And to thy tail ten thousand omens more;
   Mayst thou drink water, and on thistles feed,
   Be thy bed marble, and thy covering dew. 
   May hail and snow and rain be ever near,
   Ice and hoar frost thy constant comfort be!”

The ass, whose extraordinary performances are narrated, is appointed the “nuntius” of a bishop.

The man who showed at this time the greatest judgment in humour and insight into its nature, was John of Salisbury.  His Polycraticus is worthy of a religious character; but he speaks in it of “Court Trifles” under which he places dice, music and dreams.  Many of his observations show a taste and knowledge in advance of his time.  “Our age,” he says, “has fallen back to fables,” and he speaks as though the jesters of the day indulged in very questionable jokes and performances.  He notices the force of a jest made by a man who would himself fall under it, as when a pauper laughs at poverty.  Also he refers to the effect of accusing a man of the faults to which his virtues may lead, as of telling a liberal man he is a spendthrift.  “So Diogenes told Antisthenes, his master, that he had made him a doctor instead of a rich man—­a dweller in a tub, instead of in a mansion.”  Well-timed pleasantries, he says, are of use in oratory, but convivial jesting is dangerous, remarks or personal defects are objectionable, and as Lycurgus ordered, all jokes should be without bitterness.

But Walter Mapes seems to have been the first man of note, who reconciled “divinity and wit.”  He was born on the borders of Wales about the beginning of the twelvth century, and having studied at the University of Paris became a favourite of Henry II., and was made a Canon of St. Paul’s, and Archdeacon of Oxford.  It may be worth notice that his name was really a monosyllable, “Map,” a man’s appellation being not always without influence in determining his character and conduct.  From being a man of humour he obtained the credit of being a man of pleasure, but as far as we can collect from the writings, which are with certainty attributed to him, he was strongly imbued with religious feelings.  He delights to recount the miracles of saints.  Peter of Tarentaise exorcised, he tells us, a devil from one possessed, and the man proved his cure by exclaiming, “Mother of God, have mercy upon me!” whereupon John the bishop said of Peter.  “This is the only bishop—­the rest of us are dogs unable to bark.”  Mapes also reflects the credulity of the age in which he lived, by narrating extraordinary stories of infidels walking about after death, and calling people by name, who always died shortly afterwards.  He gives us a collection of Welsh “apparitions.”