If not by scriptures, how can we be sure,
Replied the Panther, what tradition's pure?
For you may palm upon us new for old;
All, as they say, that glitters, is not gold.
How but by following her, replied the dame,
To whom derived from sire to son they came;
Where every age does on another move,
And trusts no farther than the next above;
Where all the rounds like Jacob's ladder rise,
The lowest hid in earth, the topmost in the skies?