Spain, during the fifteenth century, was very prolific in writers of verse, as a glance at the Oandoneros of Baena, Castillo, Estufliga, and a number of other early collections, both printed and manuscript, will show. That these were not all poets by divine right, no one perhaps will gainsay, nor would the world have suffered any great loss, if much of their verse had disappeared forever. In the time of Don Juan II. (1407-1454), himself a poet,* it seemed to have been considered a necessary accomplishment of every courtier to write poetry, and as the Spanish language falls into measure and rhyme at the slightest provocation, the practice of such an accomplishment was fraught with little difficulty. Still, despite what has been said above, there is a charm about much of the poetry in these Oandoneros that is undeniable, and among their poets many names occur that will always occupy an honorable place in the literature of Spain. With perhaps a few exceptions, the best poetry in these collections is found in the short lyrical pieces. They are often delightfully naive, but necessarily suffer from sameness, love being the theme of most of them, and even this may become wearisome. But there were also poets, though in much lesser number, who turned their thoughts to things spiritual. Of these, two of the most famous were the Marquis of Santillana,^and his kinsman Fernan Perez de ' The poems of Don Juan II., King of Castile, have been printed by Pidal in the Appendix to the Cancionero of Baena, Madrid, 1851, p. lxxxi. One of the manuscript collections alluded to above has since been published by the writer: Der Spanische Cancionero des Brit. Mus. (jbs. Add. IO4SI) in VoUmoUer's Romaniache Forschungen, Bd. x, Eriangen, 1895. ' They are collected under the rubric " Obras devotas," in Amador de los Eios, Obras del Marques de Sanlillana, Madrid, 1882, p. 299 ff. With the religious poems of a later poet, Juan Tallante, a Valencian, begin all the editions of the Cancionero of Hernando del Castillo, from 1511 to 1573.