I Know All About It espoused Vanity, and begat Pleasure, who, marrying Tha Not Likely, became father to Let Us Enjoy Ourselves and Bad Luck.
Bad Luck took to wife Little Sense, and had a very large family, among whom were This Will Do, What Business Is It Of Theirs, It Seems To Me, I Not Possible.
Pleasure was widowed, and, marrying again, espoused Folly. Consuming their inheritance, they said one to the other, “Have Patience, let us spend our capital and enjoy ourselves this year, for God will provide for the next.” But Deception took them to prison, and Poverty to the workhouse, where they died.
Strange obsequies were performed at their funeral, at which were present the five Senses, Intellect, Memory, and Will, although in a pitiful condition. Repentance, who came somewhat late, found no seat, and had to stand the whole time, while Consolation and Contentment were represented by Desolation and Melancholy, daughters of Memory.
Despair, grandchild of the deceased, went about begging for several days, in which he could only collect six maravedies, with which he bought a rope and hanged himself from a turret, which is the end of the family of Fools.
Anon. (Seventeenth Century).
THE FAMOUS PREACHER, FRIAR BLAS.
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 favourite 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 everything before him in the drawing-rooms he frequented.
FRIAR BLAS.