Some effect of the new criticism is seen in the works of the Jesuit, JOSÉ FRANCISCO DE ISLA (1703-81), whose finer humour is displayed in his _Triunfo del Amor y de la Lealtad_ (1746), which professes to describe the proclamation at Pamplona of Ferdinand VI.'s accession. The author was officially thanked by Council and Chapter, and some expressed by gifts their gratitude for his handsome treatment. As Basques joke with difficulty, it was not until two months later that the _Triunfo_ (which bears the alternative title of _A Great Day for Navarre_) was suspected to be a burlesque of the proceedings and all concerned in them. Isla kept his countenance while he assured his victims of his entire good faith; the latter, however, expressed their slow-witted indignation in print, and brought such pressure to bear that the lively Jesuit—who kept up the farce of denial till the last day of his life—was removed from Pamplona by his superiors. The incorrigible wag departed to become a fashionable preacher; but his sense of humour accompanied him to church, and was displayed at the cost of his brethren. Paravicino, as we have already observed, introduced Gongorism into the pulpit, and his lead was followed by men of lesser faculty, who reproduced "the contortions of the Sibyl without her inspiration." By degrees preaching almost grew to be a synonym for buffoonery, and by the middle of the eighteenth century it was as often as not an occasion for the vulgar profanity which pleases devout illiterates. It is impossible to cite here the worst excesses; it is enough to note that a "cultured" congregation applauded a preacher who dared to speak of "the divine Adonis, Christ, enamoured of that singular Psyche, Mary!" Bishops in their pastorals, monks like Feijóo in his _Cartas eruditas_, and laymen like Mayáns in his _Orador Cristiano_ (1733), strove ineffectually to reform the abuse: where exhortation failed, satire succeeded. Isla had witnessed these pulpit extravagances at first hand, and his six quarto volumes of sermons—none of them inspiring to read, however impressive when delivered—show that he himself had begun by yielding to a mode from which his good sense soon freed him.