In 1599, the year following upon the issue of Lope's _Dragontea_, the picaresque tradition of _Lazarillo de Tormes_ was revived by the Sevillan MATEO ALEMÁN (fl. ? 1550-1609) in the First Part of his _Atalaya de la Vida humana_: _Vida del Pícaro Guzmán de Alfarache_. The alternative title—the _Watch-Tower of Human Life_—was rejected by the reading public, which, to the author's annoyance, insisted on speaking of the _Pícaro_ or _Rogue_. Little is known of Alemán's life, save that he took his Bachelor's degree at Seville in 1565. He is conjectured to have visited Italy, perhaps as a soldier, is found serving in the Treasury so early as 1568, and, after twenty years, left the King's service as poor as he entered it. A passage in his _Ortografía Castellana_, published at Mexico in 1609, is thought to show that he was a printer; but this is surmise. That he emigrated to America seems certain; but the date of his death is unknown. His _Guzmán de Alfarache_ is an amplified version of Lázaro's adventures; and, though he adds little to the first conception, his abundant episode and interminable moralisings hit the general taste. Twenty-six editions, amounting to some fifty thousand copies, appeared within six years of the first publication: not even _Don Quixote_ had such a vogue. Nor was it less fortunate abroad. In 1623 it was admirably translated by James Mabbe in a version for which Ben Jonson wrote a copy of verses in praise of "_this Spanish Proteus; who, though writ But in one tongue, was form'd with the world's wit; And hath the noblest mark of a good book, That an ill man dares not securely look Upon it, but will loathe, or let it pass, As a deformed face doth a true glass._" It is curious to note that Mabbe's rendering appeared in the same year as Shakespeare's First Folio, to which Ben Jonson also contributed; but while the _Rogue_ reached its fourth edition in 1656, the third edition of the First Folio was not printed till 1664.