QUEVEDO Y VILLEGAS, Don FRANCISCO GoMEZ DE, a Spanish classic, was b. at Madrid. Sept. 26. 1580, and studied at the university of Alcala Rewires, where he acquired a good knowledge, not only of Latin and Greek, but also of Hebrew and Ara bic, besides French and Italian. His career, which was cbiefiv that of a diplomatist, was marked by numerous vicissitudes. He died Sept. 8, 1645, at Villa Nueva de los Infantes.
The prose works of Quevedo yVilleg as are divisible into two classes—the serious and the burlesque. Among the former are hiS Vision of St. Paul, The Spanish Epic1etm, Phocylides, Fortune become Reasonable, and particularly The Life of Marcus Brutus and The Policy of God—the last two of which are remarkable for the purity and elevation of their sentiments. Among his satirical and burlesque productions, in which his genius finds its expression, the principal are: The Dream of the Death's Heads, The Demon Alguazil, Sables, The Side-scenes of the TTrorld, The Letters of liar Knight of the Forceps,Recollections of Student Life, and The Grand Sharper, or the History of Don Pablo de Segovia, a romance of rascahlorn, a species of fiction much cultivated in Spain at that time, in which the hero is usually an adventurous scamp. The lively sallies, the piqu
ant allusions, and the happy metaphors found in these books have enriched Spanish literature with a crowd of proverbs and colloquial phrases. Quevedo y poetry is also chiefly of a humorous character. ills works have been often reprinted; the most complete edition is that by Sancho (Madrid, 11 vols. 1791-94); a more recent collection is the one by M. Guerra y Orbe (Madrid, 1852). An English translation of Quevedo y Villegas's satirical works was published at Edinburgh in 1798; his SoehoR, or Visions, among the most popular of all his productions, were also translated into Eng> lisp by sir Roger l'Estrange (1708).