226 
IJZYWY 
of Caricature 
Grotqfgue 
and 
fentiments of Erafmus, it would be Grange if the Romifh church, with 
its monks and ignorant priefihood, its faints, and relics, and miracles, did 
not End a place. Erafmus intimates that the fuperliitious follies had 
become permanent, becaufe they were profitable. There are fome, he 
tells us, who cherilhed the foolifh yet pleafant perfualion, that if they 
fixed their eyes devoutly on a figure of St. Chriftopher, carved in wood 
Superfiticn. 
or painted on the Wall, they would be fafe from death on that day; with 
many other examples of equal credulity. Then there are your pardons, 
your meafures of purgatory, which may be bought off at lb much the 
hour, or the day, or the month, and a multitude of other abfurdities. 
Eccleflaitics, fcholars, mathematicians, philofophers, all come in for their 
{hare of the refined fatire of this book, which, like the " Ship of Fools," 
has gone through innumerable editions, and has been tranflated into 
many languages. 
In an early French tranllation, the text of this work of Erafmus is 
embellithed with tome of the woodcuts belonging to Brandt's " Ship of 
Fools,"