Among the names which gave a lustre to the Court were the veteran Lope de Vega; Calderon, author among other dramas of the “Comedies of Cape and Sword”; Velez de Guevara, playwright and novelist, whose “El Diablo Cojuelo” was the original of Le Sage’s “Le Diable Boiteux”; Luis de Gongora, the poet; Quevedo, the satirist; Bartolomé Argensola, historian, and Antonio de Solis, poet, dramatist and author of “The History of the Conquest of Mexico.” Philip himself posed, with considerable warrant, as a poet and musician, and even took part as an actor in the musical and dramatic entertainments which [Illustration: THE CATHOLIC KINGS SCHOOL OF CASTILE AT PRAYER XV CENTURY THE PRADO] enlivened the ennui of the Court in the palace of Buen Retiro. He was also, as an amateur, skilful in drawing and painting. This doubtless helped him to appreciate the merits of Velasquez, who to the world outside of Spain represents the subject of most significance in his life. Philip’s companionship with the artist, five years his elder, which except for the brief intervals in which one or the other of them was traveling, lasted for thirty-seven years, indeed until Velasquez’ death, is the one thing on which the student of history and of art cares to dwell. It has secured for Philip IV a recognition which his political importance would have denied him. The increasing impotence of the Hapsburg family of Spanish king’s reached its climax in Philip’s son, Charles II. One has but to glance at the latter’s portrait, painted by Juan Carreño, to realise the physical and mental degeneracy that the family type has undergone. The type, as one sees it in Titian’s equestrian portrait of his great-great-grandfather, Charles I of Spain and V of Germany, is already abnormal. The grey eyes, for all their sternness and penetrating character, have a pathetic cast of melancholy; the under jaw protrudes like that of an ape. But the chin is massive, as indicative of force as of ferocity. In Philip II, as he appears in Titian’s portrait in the Prado, the face has lengthened; the eyes have lost their piercing gaze, and while no less melancholy, have an expression of deliberate cruelty. The coarseness of the lower part of the face is displayed in the exaggerated sensuality of the out-turned lower lip, beneath which is a tapering chin, that has a suggestion of blended weakness and petty doggedness. In the equestrian portrait of Philip III, which is supposed to have been painted by Bartolomé Gonzáles and effectively retouched by Velasquez, the monarch’s head is carried a little back, a gesture which extenuates with probable intention the protrusion of the lower part. But the chin is feebly pointed, the under lip pendulous, while the eye suggests an empty vacuity, that is echoed in the mild fierceness of the upcurling moustache. It is a face vain, stupid and not a little commonplace. The last quality, at least, is absent, from the portraits of Philip IV.