He was like a vigorous plant, which needs only water and a poor soil to thrive well, but which, in rich land, shoots into wasteful luxuriance without bearing fruit. The father’s wealth became, as often happens, the ruin of the son. He had scarcely begun to taste the pleasure of being the sole possessor and master of a princely fortune, when he did all in his power to get rid of it, as if it were a heavy burthen. He imitated the rich man in the scriptures, to a tittle, “and fared sumptuously every day.”
The feasts of the bishop were far surpassed in splendour and luxuries by those he gave; and, as long as the town of Bremen stands, it will never again see such a feast as he was accustomed to give yearly. Every citizen received a large joint of roast beef, and a flask of Spanish wine; all the people drank the health of old Melchior’s son, and Francis was the hero of the day.
In this continual intoxication of pleasure, he never thought of balancing his accounts, which, in those good old times, was the very vade mecum of merchants, but which, in the present
B 2
