How fly-flap, of church-censure houses rid
Of insects, which at curse of fryar died.
How ferrying cowls religious pilgrims bore
O’er waves, without the help of sail or oar;
How zealous crab the sacred image bore,
And swam a catholic to the distant shore.
With shams like these the giddy rout mislead,
Their folly and their superstition feed.
These are all extravagant fictions in the “Golden legend.” Among other gross and equally absurd impositions to deceive the mob, Oldham also attacks them for certain publications on topics not less singular. The tales he has recounted, says Oldham, are only baits for children like toys at a fair; but they have their profounder and higher matters for the learned and the inquisitive.
One undertakes by scales of miles to tell