Such, at least, was the case in Spain. Poetical satire came there to be looked upon with distrust, so that it was thought to be hardly in good taste, or according to the conventions of good society, to indulge in its composition.[7] And if, with all this, we remember the anxious nature of the political tyranny which long ruled the country, and the noiseless, sleepless vigilance of the Inquisition,--both of which are apparent in the certificates and licenses that usher in whatever succeeded in finding its way through the press,--we shall have no difficulty in accounting for the fact, that poetical satire never had a vigorous and healthy existence in Spain, and that, after the latter part of the seventeenth century, it almost entirely disappeared till better times revived it. [7] Cervantes is a strong case in point. In the fourth chapter of his “Journey to Parnassus,” immediately after speaking of his Don Quixote, he disavows having ever written any thing satirical, and denounces _all_ such compositions as low and base. Indeed, the very words _sátira_ and _satírico_ came at last to be used in a bad sense oftener than in a good one. Huerta, Sinónimos Castellanos, Valencia, 1807, 2 tom. 12mo, _ad verb._ * * * * * Elegies, though from their subjects little connected with satire, are yet, by their measure and manner, connected with it in Spanish poetry; for both are generally written in the Italian _terza rima_, and both are often thrown into the form of epistles.[8] Garcilasso could write elegies in their true spirit; but the second that passes under that name in his works is merely a familiar epistle to a friend. So is the first by Figueroa, which is followed by others in a tone more appropriate to their titles. But all are in the Italian verse and manner, and two of them in the Italian language. The eleven “Lamentations,” as he calls them, of Silvestre, are elegiac epistles to his lady-love, written in the old Castilian measures, and not without the old Castilian poetical spirit. Cantorál fails; nor can the Argensolas and Borja be said to have succeeded, though they wrote in different manners, some of which were scarcely elegiac. Herrera is too lyric--too lofty, perhaps, from the very nature of his genius--to write good elegies; but some of those on his love, and one in which he mourns over the passions that survive the decay of his youth, have certainly both beauty and tenderness.