More learned, more professional and less spontaneous than Santillana, his friend Juan de Mena was in his place as secretary to Juan II. We know little of him except that he was born at Córdoba in 1411, that his youth was passed in poverty, that his studies began late, that he travelled in Italy, and that, after his introduction at court, he was a universal favourite till his death in 1456. Universal favourites are apt to be men of supple character, and it must have needed some dexterity to stand equally well with Álvaro de Luna and Santillana. Perhaps a Spaniard is entitled to be judged by the Spanish code, and Spaniards seem to regard Mena as a man of independent spirit. But it is unfortunate that our national standards in such matters differ so widely: for the question of Mena’s personal character bears on the ascription to him of certain verses which no courtier could have written. With the disputable exception of Villena, Juan de Mena is the worst prose-writer in the Spanish language, and no one can doubt the justice of this verdict who glances at Mena’s commentary on his own poem _La Coronación_, or at his abridged version of the _Iliad_ as he found it in the _Ilias latina_ of Italicus. These lumbering performances are fatal to the theory that Mena wrote the _Crónica de Don Juan II._, a good specimen of clear and fluent prose. The ponderous humour of the verses which he meant to be light is equally fatal to the theory that he wrote the _Coplas de la Panadera_, a political pasquinade—not unlike _The Rolliad_—ascribed with much more probability by Argote de Molina to Íñigo Ortiz de Stúñiga. Till very recently, there was a bad habit of ascribing to Mena anonymous compositions written during his life—and even afterwards. But this is at an end, and we shall hear little more of Mena as the author of the _Crónica de Juan II._, of the _Coplas de la Panadera_, and of the _Celestina_. Henceforward attributions will be based on some reasonable ground.