r at hand, in the _Proverbios morales_ of the Jew Sem
Tob (_ca_. 1350), in the _Rimado de Palacio_ of Ayala, and
in a few poets of the _Cancionero de Baena_.

John II was a dilettante who left the government of the
kingdom to his favorite, Alvaro de Luna. He gained more
fame in the world of letters than many better kings by
fostering the study of literature and gathering about him
a circle of "court poets" nearly all of noble birth. Only
two names among them all imperatively require mention.
Inigo LOPEZ DE MENDOZA, MARQUIS OF SANTILLANA (1398-1458)
was the finest type of _grand seigneur_, protector of
letters, student, warrior, poet and politician. He wrote
verse in all three of the manners just named, but he will
certainly be longest remembered for his _serranillas_, the
fine flower of the Provencal-Galician tradition, in which
the poet describes his meeting with a country lass.
Santillana combined the freshest local setting with
perfection of form and left nothing more to be desired in
that genre. He also wrote the first sonnets in Castilian,
but they are interesting only as an experiment, and had no
followers. Juan de MENA (1411-1456) was purely a literary
man, without other distinction of birth or accomplishment.
His work is mainly after the Italian model. The _Laberinto
de fortuna_, by which he is best known, is a dull allegory
with much of Dante's apparatus. There are historical
passages where the poet's patriotism leads him page xvii
to a certain rhetorical height, but his good intentions
are weighed down by three millstones: slavish imitation,
the monotonous _arte mayor_ stanza and the deadly
earnestness of his temperament. He enjoyed great renown
and authority for many decades.

Two anonymous poems of about the same time deserve
mention. The _Danza de la muerte_, the Castilian
representative of a type which appeared all over Europe,
shows death summoning mortals from all stations of
life with ghastly glee. The _Coplas de Mingo Revulgo_,
promulgated during the reign of Henry IV (1454-1474), are
a political satire in dialogue form, and exhibit for the
first time the peculiar peasant dialect that later became
a convention of the pastoral eclogues and also of the
country scenes in the great drama.

The second half of the century continues the same
tendencies with a notable development in the fluidity of
the language and an increasing interest in popular poetry.
Gomez Manrique (d. 1491?) was