QUEVEDO DE VILLEGAS, FRANCISCO, a celebrated
Spanish poet, born at Madrid in the year 1570. He was de-
scended from a noble family, and was made a knight of St
James; but he was thrown into prison by order of Count
Olivarez, whose administration he satirized in his verses, and
was not set at liberty until after that minister's disgrace.
Quevedo wrote some heroic, lyric, and facetious poems. He
also composed several treatises on religious subjects, and
translated some authors into Spanish. He died in 1644.
The best known of his works are, 1. The Spanish Parnassus; Quiberon
2. The Adventurer Buscon; 3. Visions of Hell Reformed.
Quevedo was one of the greatest scholars and most eminent
poets of his time. His youth was spent in the service of
his country in Italy, where he distinguished himself by the
utmost sagacity and prudence. His moral discourses prove
the soundness of his doctrine and his religious sentiments,
whilst the correctness of his literary pieces display his ac-
curate judgment and refined taste. His great knowledge
of Hebrew is apparent from the report of the historian Ma-
riana to the king, requesting that Quevedo might revise the
new edition of the Bible of Arias Montanus. His transla-
tions of Epictetus and Phocylides, with his imitations of
Anacreon and other Greek authors, show how well he was
versed in that language; that he was a Latin scholar, his
constant correspondence, from the age of twenty, with Lip-
sius, Chifflet, and Scioppius, sufficiently illustrates. As a
poet, he excelled both in the serious and burlesque style,
and was singularly happy in that particular turn which we
have since admired in Butler and Swift.