The reader will easily recognize the "Maid with the milking pail" at the bottom of this illustration. Before the production of any of the regular pieces of De Vega, or Calderon, or Alarcon, or Tirso de Molina, the easily pleased folk of country or town were thoroughly satisfied with Rueda's repertory. When the talented stroller died in 1567, he was honored with a costly funeral, and solemnly interred in the cathedral of Cordova. Strange contrast between his posthumous fortune and that of Molière! The impression made on Cervantes by the performances on Rueda's platform was strong and lasting. He ever retained a high respect for the talent of observation, the native genius and the good sense of Lope de Rueda. In the preface to his own plays, Cervantes left an inventory of the theatrical properties of the strolling establishments in his youth: "All the materials of representation were contained in a sack. They were made up of four jackets of sheepskin, laced with gilt leather, four beards, as many wigs, four shepherd's crooks. The comedies consisted of eclogues or colloquies between two or three shepherds and one shepherdess. They prolonged the entertainments by means of interludes, such as that of the _Negress_, the _Ruffian_, the _Fool_, or that of the _Biscayan_,--four personages played by Lope as well as many others, and all with the greatest perfection and the happiest natural ability that can be imagined." One evening in the old age of Cervantes, the company around him were discussing the living actors and the present condition of the theatre. Among other things they treated of the infancy of the Spanish stage, and the artist who first essayed to make it something better than a platform for tumbling. Cervantes at once brought forward the claims of his early master: "I remember having seen play the great comedian Lope de Rueda, a man distinguished for his intelligence and his style of acting. He excelled in pastoral poetry. In that department no one then or since has shown himself his superior. Though then a child, and unable to appreciate the merit of his verses, nevertheless when I occasionally repeat some couplets that have remained in my memory, I find that my impression of his ability is correct." HIS FIRST STEP IN LIFE.