Francisco Gomez De Quevedo Y Villegas, a Spanish author, born in Madrid, Sept. 26, 1580, died at Villanueva de los Infantes, Sept. 8, 1645. He was educated at the university of Alcalá, and took a degree in theology at the age of 15. Having killed a nobleman in a duel, he fled to Sicily, where the viceroy, the duke of Osuna, gave him honorable employment, and on his removal to Naples made him minister of finance. On visiting Madrid on diplomatic business, he was pardoned and received a pension. He was concerned in the conspiracy of the marquis of Bedmar against Venice (1618), and narrowly escaped from that city with his life. After the disgrace of his patron (1620) he was kept a prisoner at his country seat, La Torre de Juan Abad, for three years and a half, but was released without trial. He published in 1631 a collection of the poetry of Luis de Leon, and Poesias del bachiller de la Torre, being probably the work of Quevedo himself. Being falsely accused in 1639 of writing some satirical verses which had been laid under the king's napkin at dinner, he was kept for nearly four years in rigorous confinement, where he contracted diseases from which he never recovered. His papers having been twice seized by the government, the greater part of his works have never been printed.

Among his published writings are treatises "On the Providence of God;" "God's Politics and Christ's Government," in which he endeavors to collect a complete body of political philosophy from the example of the Saviour; "On a Holy Life;" "The Militant Life of a Christian," etc. His most celebrated works are his prose satires, more witty than delicate. Among these are his "History and Life of the great Sharper, Paul of Segovia" (1627); his treatise " On all Things, and many more;" "The Tale of Tales;" and "Letters of the Knight of the Forceps" (Cartas del cavallero de la Tenaza, 1635). His Sueflos, or " Visions," perhaps the most popular and effective of his satires, were published collectively in 1635, and translated into English by Sir Roger L'Estrange in 1708. A collection of Quevedo's poetry was made by Salas in 1648, another by Alderete in 1670, under the title of "The Spanish Parnassus, divided into two Summits, with the Nine Castilian Muses." There is a complete edition of his works by Sancho (11 vols. 8vo, Madrid, 1790-'94), and a later collection by Guerra y Orbe (Madrid, 1852). A translation of the satirical works appeared at Edinburgh in 1798.