Of all Lope's imitators the most undisguised is the son of the King's bookseller, Doctor JUAN PÉREZ DE MONTALBÁN (1602-38), who became a priest of the Congregation of St. Peter in 1625. His father was plain Juan Pérez (as who should say John Smith), and the son was cruelly bantered for his airs and graces:—"Put Doctor in front and Montalbán behind, and plebeian Pérez shines an aristocrat." It was rumoured that his _Orfeo_ (1624), written to compete with Jáuregui, was really Lope's work, given by the patriarch to start his favourite in life. The story is probably false, for the verse lacks Lope's ease and grace; but the _Orfeo_ won Montalbán a name, and—there is no such luck for modern minor poets—in 1625 a Peruvian merchant expressed his admiration by settling a pension on the young priest. Montalbán lived in closest intimacy with Lope, who taught his young admirer stagecraft, and helped him with introductions to managers. Unluckily he sought to rival his master in fecundity as well as in method, and the effort broke him. He is often credited with writing the _Tribunal of Just Vengeance_, a work which describes Quevedo as "Master of Error, Doctor of Impudence, Licentiate of Buffoonery, Bachelor of Filth, Professor of Vice, and Archdevil of Mankind." Quevedo, on his side, had a grievance, inasmuch as Pérez, the bookseller, had pirated the _Buscón_. He prophesied that Montalbán would die a lunatic, and, in fact, his words came true. Pellicer credits Montalbán with literary theories of his own, but they are mere repetitions of Lope's precepts in the _Arte Nuevo_. Like his master, Montalbán has a keen eye for a situation, for the dramatic value of a popular story, as he shows in his _Amantes de Teruel_, those eternal types of constancy; but he writes too hurriedly, with more ambition than power, is infected with _culteranismo_, and, though he apes Lope with superficial success in his secular plays, fails utterly when he attempts the sacred drama. His own age thought most highly of _No hay Vida como la Honra_, one of the first pieces to have a "run" on the Spanish stage; but the _Amantes_ is his best work, and its vigorous dialogue may still be read with emotion.