captains of his armies; Spinola, Pimentel, Pulido-Pareja, and the rest of them; the great Olivares himself, and all the rout of glittering satellites who revolved around the Planet King. [Sidenote: A literary court] Philip enjoyed almost as much the society of Quevedo as that of Velazquez, but the satiric wit was less careful than the painter, and his medium was more risky; so that, though his biting verse and malicious prose had in the King an appreciative listener, the poet was almost as often in exile as in favour.[22] The literary contests and discussions which amused Philip as he grew older {201} always, when Quevedo was not in disgrace, benefited by his ready wit. Philip himself took part in these literary orgies in the palace, frequently proposing a subject for an impromptu play in the facile blank verse which comes so trippingly upon Spanish lips. The subject would sometimes be a sacred one, in which case the treatment was such as would shock modern ears, though for abject lip devotion the persons who spoke so slightingly of sacred things were never surpassed. It is related that on one such occasion Philip set the Creation of the World as the subject for an impromptu play, assigning to himself the character of the Maker. The poet, whom he had cast for Adam, made his part unduly long, and Philip elaborately expressed his grief, as the Eternal Father, that ever he should have afflicted the world with such a long-winded Adam. But though these literary diversions had already become attractive to him at the period at which we are now writing (1626-1630), the gloomy old Alcazar was not a congenial setting for frivolity; and it was not until later, when the new suburban palace of the Buen Retiro was specially devised by Olivares for the purpose, that the poetic and dramatic exercises of the Court reached their zenith, as will be related in a future chapter.