In one case we have an instance of a Spanish court fool also belonging to Philip II., exercising the high profession of prophecy. Flögel thus tells the story, which he borrows from Richter’s _Spectaculum Mundi_. “A court fool of Philip’s once saw the following persons sitting at the Royal table:--Hugo Boncampius of Bologna, Papal Nuncio in Spain; Perettus, a Franciscan monk of Ancona, who in his youth had been a swineherd; and the Protonotary Sfondrati, of Milan. ‘Dost thou know,’ said the jester to the King, ‘that you have three Popes at table?’ Thereupon, he touched each upon the shoulder according to the future order of their succession; first, Hugo, afterwards Gregory XIII.; then Perretus, subsequently Sixtus V.; and lastly Sfondrati, who became Gregory XIV.” Flögel considers this as a rather fabulous story, although he admits that the Eastern idea of the sayings of fools being sometimes inspired by divinity, prevailed occasionally in Europe. He cites Claudius Agrippa as ascribing the gift of prophecy to Klaus Narr, of whom I have already spoken; and he maintains the alleged fact that Klaus, at the royal table, aroused the guests by exclaiming that one of the Elector’s castles, twelve leagues off, was in flames. According to tradition, this proved to be the case, and if so, Klaus may claim the possession of that not very desirable gift in this world,--the gift of second-sight. Of the Spanish jesters in noblemen’s households there is not much to be said. Perico de Ayala, the paid buffoon of the Marquis of Villena, was among the most celebrated. The Marquis, says Floresta (_Española_), “once ordered his wardrobe-keeper to give the fool _un sayo de brocado_; the man only gave him the _mangas_ and _faldamentos_. Away went Perico to the court brotherhood, and requested them to bury one who had died at the Marquis’s, and then away went the funeral procession, with the little death-bell tinkling before them. The Marquis, seeing them at his door, asked them why they came. ‘For the body,’ said the fool, ‘as the Chamberlain only gave me the trimmings.’” Perico distinguished himself more wittily in his reply to a knight who once asked him the properties of turquoise. “Why,” said the fool, “if you have a turquoise about you, and should fall from the top of a tower and be dashed to pieces, the stone would not break!”