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] [327] “Historia del Famoso Predicador, Fray Gerundio de Campazas,” Madrid, 1813, 4 tom. 12mo, Tom. I. p. 307. In the first edition, as well as in several other editions, it is said to be written by Francisco Lobon de Salazar, a name which has generally been supposed to be a fictitious one; but which is, in fact, that of a friend, who was a parish priest at Villagarcia, where Father Isla, who mentions him often in his letters, wrote his Friar Gerund. The style of eloquence of this vulgar ecclesiastical fop, a specimen of which follows, is no less faithfully and characteristically given; and was taken, as Father Isla intimates was his custom, from a discourse that had really been preached.[328] [328] Cartas Familiares, 1790, Tom. VI. p. 313.