[326] Vida de Isla, § 3. Sermones, Madrid, 1792-93, 6 tom. 8vo. Vulgar preaching in the streets was common as early as 1680, when Madame d’Aulnoy was in Spain. Voyage, ed. 1693, Tom. II. p. 168.
Isla, however, was not satisfied with merely setting a good example. He determined to make a direct attack on the abuse itself. For this purpose, he wrote what he called “The History of the Famous Preacher, Friar Gerund”; a satirical romance, in which he describes the life of one of these popular orators, from his birth in an obscure village, through his education in a fashionable convent, and his adventures as a missionary about the country; the fiction ending abruptly with his preparation to deliver a course of sermons in a city that seems intended to represent Madrid. It is written throughout with great spirit; and not only are the national manners and character everywhere present, but, in the episodes and in the occasional sketches Isla has given of conventual and religious life in his time, there is an air of reality which leaves no doubt that the author drew freely on the resources of his personal experience. Its plan resembles slightly that of “Don Quixote,” but its execution reminds us oftener of Rabelais and his discursive and redundant reflections, though of Rabelais without his coarseness. It is serious, as becomes the Spanish character, and conceals under its gravity a spirit of sarcasm, which, in other countries, seems inconsistent with the idea of dignity, but which, in Spain, has been more than once happily united with it, and made more effective by the union.
The sketches of character and specimens of fashionable pulpit oratory given in the “Friar Gerund” are the best parts of it, and are agreeable illustrations for the literary history of the eighteenth century. Of the preacher whom the Friar took for his model we have the following carefully drawn portrait:--
“He was in the full perfection of his strength, just about three-and-thirty years old; tall, robust, and stout; his limbs well set and well proportioned; manly in gait, inclining to corpulence, with an erect carriage of his head, and the circle of hair round his tonsure studiously and exactly combed and shaven. His clerical dress was always neat, and fell round his person in ample and regular folds. His shoes fitted him with the greatest nicety, and, above all, his silken cap was adorned with much curious embroidery and a fanciful tassel,--the work of certain female devotees who were dying with admiration of their favorite preacher. In short, he had a very youthful, gallant look; and, adding to this a clear, rich voice, a slight fashionable lisp, a peculiar grace in telling a story, a talent at mimicry, an easy action, a taking manner, a high-sounding style, and not a little effrontery,--never forgetting to sprinkle jests, proverbs, and homely phrases along his discourses with a most agreeable aptness,--he won golden opinions in his public discourses, and carried every thing before him in the drawing-rooms he frequented.”[327]