He was left early an orphan, and his vivacious disposition led him into various scrapes and adventures. The most important among these was an elopement from school when fourteen years of age, impelled by a desire of seeing the world. He concerted with a friend of his, Fernando Muñoz, who was filled with a similar desire: they both provided as well as they could for the necessities of the journey, and went on foot as far as Segovia, where they bought a mule for 15 ducats; with this they proceeded to Lavañeza, and Astorga--where meeting, we may guess, with several of those various discomforts we find detailed in "Lazarillo de los Tormes," and other _picaresco_ works, as inevitable in Spanish inns, they became disgusted, and made up their minds to return. When they had got back as far as Segovia, their purses were emptied of small money, and they had recourse to a silversmith, the one to sell a chain and the other to change a doubloon. The silversmith's suspicions were awakened and he sent for a judge, and the judge, a miracle in Spain, was a just judge, as Montalvan says, "he must have had a touch of conscience about him"--for he neither robbed nor threw them into prison; but questioning them and finding them agree in their story, and that their fault was that of youth, not of vice, he sent them back to Madrid, with an alguazil, who restored them, doubloons, chain and all, into the hands of their relations, "which," says Montalvan, "he did at small cost. Such then was the honesty of the ministers of justice, who now-a-days would have thought they had not gained enough had they not made an eight-days' lawsuit about it." The youth soon after became an inmate in the house of the grand inquisitor, don Geronimo Manrique, bishop of Avila; it would appear that he was there as a _protegé_, and that the bishop thought his talents deserving protection and encouragement. His own expression is, "Don Geronimo Manrique educated me." He delighted the prelate with various eclogues that he wrote, and a comedy called the "Pastoral of Jacinto,"--from which Montalvan dates the change Lope de Vega operated in the Spanish theatre. This comedy is not extant, therefore it is impossible to pass a judgment upon it; but the name of pastoral rather seems to limit it to an imitation of the plays then in vogue; indeed his eulogist only mentions this difference, that he had reduced the number of acts to three. Montalvan goes on to speak as if he, at this time, brought out successful plays, but this arises rather from the confusion of his expressions, than mistake: he wrote them, it is true, for he tells us so himself; but there is no trace of any being played. Meanwhile, feeling that his knowledge was slight, and his education unfinished, with the assistance of the bishop, he entered the university of Alcala, where he remained four years, until he graduated, and was distinguished among his companions in the examinations.