Nor did the state of society at this period favor the advancement, or even the continuance, of any such spirit. The epistles of Espinel and Arguijo are, therefore, absolutely grave and solemn; and those of Rioja, Salcedo, Ulloa, and Melo are not only grave, but are almost entirely destitute of poetical merit, except one by the first of them, addressed to Fabio, which, if neither gay nor witty, is an admirably wise moral rebuke of the folly and irksomeness of depending on royal favor. Borja is more free, as became his high station, and speaks out more plainly; but the best of his epistles--the one against a court life--is not so good as the youthful _tercetos_ on the same subject by Góngora, nor equal to his own jesting address to his collected poems. Rebolledo, his only successor of any note at the time, is moral, but tiresome; and Solís, like the few that followed him, is too dull to be remembered. Indeed, if Villegas in his old age, when, perhaps, he had been soured by disappointment, had not written three satires which he did not venture to publish, we should have nothing worth notice as we approach the disheartening close of this long period.[6] [6] The satires of all these authors are in their collected works, except those of Villegas, which were printed from manuscripts, supposed to be the originals, by Sedano (Tom. IX. pp. 3-18); or rather, two of them on bad poets were so printed, for the third seems to have been suppressed, on account of its indelicacy. Nearly all the didactic satires and nearly all the satirical epistles of the best age of Spanish literature are Horatian in their tone, and written in the Italian _terza rima_. In general, their spirit is light, though philosophical,--sometimes it is courtly,--and, taken together, they have less poetical force and a less decided coloring than we might claim from the class to which they belong. But they are frequently graceful and agreeable, and some of them will be oftener read, for the mere pleasure they bestow, than many in other languages which are distinguished for greater wit and severity. The truth, however, is, that wit and severity of this kind and in this form were never heartily encouraged in Spain. The nation itself has always been too grave and dignified to ask or endure the censure they imply; and if such a character as the Spanish has its ridiculous side, it must be approached by any thing rather than personal satire. Books like the romances of chivalry may, indeed, be assailed with effect, as they were by Cervantes; men in classes may be caricatured, as they are in the Spanish _picaresque_ novels and in the old drama; and bad poetry may be ridiculed, as it was by half the poets who did not write it, and by some who did. But the characters of individuals, and especially of those in high station and of much notoriety, are protected, under such circumstances, by all the social influences that can be brought to their defence, and cannot safely be assailed.