account of the answer is printed among Boscan’s poems, were composed in Italy during the more early part of the author’s life. But in estimating the poetical works of Mendoza, chronological arrangement is of little importance, for as a poet he preserved equality from the commencement to the close of his career. His epistle to Boscan is in part an imitation of that of Horace to Numicius.[173] The latter half, however, belongs exclusively to Mendoza. In this portion of the epistle he presents to his friend the outline of the charming picture of domestic happiness, to which Boscan himself, in the answer already mentioned, has given a higher finish; and the taste which can overlook the beauty of this picture on account of want of smoothness in the versification, must be depraved by the affectation of refinement.[174] Another epistle, addressed to Don Luis de Zuñiga, contains an ingenious and striking comparison of the character of two heterogeneous and equally foolish classes of men. The one wholly attached to the vulgar pleasures of the moment, and stupidly indifferent to the affairs of the world;[175] while the other, on the contrary, is cheated by restless cares and anxieties out of the enjoyment of the present.[176] In these epistles, Mendoza unfolded the result of his experience, as the Infante Juan Manuel did a century and a half earlier, in his Count Lucanor, though in a totally different manner. Mendoza’s style is that of an accomplished man of the world, formed in the school of the latin poets.