Buckland's vivid description of Megalosaurus

Yesterday a 1st edition copy of Francis Buckland's Curiosities of Natural History (1857) appeared in my mailbox, and it has proven to be a most delightful book. If you can find this book I would highly suggest you take the time to read it; it is wonderfully written and entertaining (although, as would be expected, there are some inaccuracies here and there). Francis Buckland was the son of famed geologist William Buckland, and throughout the book Francis pays homage to his father in a number of passages. My favorite (so far, anyway), is this quote from the elder Buckland about the dinosaur Megalosaurus;

During this period of monsters there floated in the neighborhood of what is now the lake of Blenheim - huge lizards, their jaws like crocodiles, their bodies as big as elephants, their legs like gate-posts and mile-stones, and their tails as long and as large as the steeple of Kidlington or Long Habro'. Take off the steeple of either church, lay it in a horizontal position, and place legs on it, and you will have some notion of the animal's bulk. These stories look like fables, but I ask not your indulgence to believe them. There the monsters are, and I challenge your incredulity in the face of the specimens before your eyes; - disbelieve them if you can.

Of further note is what the younger Buckland says about the great fossils that were being revealed all over England (a glimmer of an idea that anticipated what Adrienne Mayor illustrated in The First Fossil Hunters);

May not the idea of the dragons, curious stories of which are chronicles in various parts of England, owe their origin, in some way or other, to the veritable existence of these large lizards in former ages? To point out the train of ideas or circumstances which led to these ancient dragon stories is of course impossible, particularly as man was not coexistant with Megalosaurus and Co. - still there is a certain shadow of connexion between them.