He found instant imitators: one in a brother actor-manager, Alonso de la Vega (d. 1566), whose _Tolomea_ is adapted from _Medora_; the other in Luis de Miranda (fl. 1554), who dramatised the story of the Prodigal, to which, in a monstrous fit of realism, he gave a contemporary setting. Of Pedro Navarro or Naharro, whom Cervantes ranks after Rueda, naught survives. Francisco de Avendaño's verse comedy concerning Floriseo and Blancaflor had long since been forgotten were it not for the fact that here, for the first time, a Spanish play is divided into three acts—a convention which has endured, and for which later writers, like Artieda, Virués, and Cervantes, ingenuously claimed the credit. JUAN DE TIMONEDA (d. ? 1598), the Valencian bookseller who printed Rueda's _pasos_, is a sedulous mimic in every sort. He began by arranging Plautus' _Comedy of Errors_ in _Los Menecmos_; his _Cornelia_ is based upon Ariosto's _Nigromante_; and his _Oveja Perdida_ adapts an early morality on the Lost Sheep with scarcely a suggestion of original treatment. Torres Naharro is the inspiration of Timoneda's _Aurelia_; but his chief tempter was Lope de Rueda. In the volume entitled _Turiana_ (1565), issued under the anagrammatic name of Joan Diamonte, he attempts the _paso_ (which he also calls the _entremés_) to good purpose. An imitator he remains; but an imitator whose pleasant humour takes the place of invention, and whose lively prose dialogue is in excellent contrast with his futile verse. His _Patrañuelo_, a collection of some twenty traditional stories, is a well-meant attempt to satisfy the craving created by _Lazarillo de Tormes_. If Timoneda experimented in every field, it is not unjust to infer that, taking the tradesman's view of literature, he was moved less by intelligent curiosity than by the desire to supply his customers with novelties. Withal, if he be not individual, his unpolished drolleries are vastly more engaging than the ambitious triflings of many contemporaries. Pacheco, the father-in-law of Velázquez, notes that Juan de Malara (1527-71) composed "many tragedies" both in Latin and Castilian; and Cueva, in his _Ejemplar poético_, gives the number hyperbolically:— "_En el teatro mil tragedias puso._"