General politics, social economy, war, finance, literary and religious questions, all came under his dissecting knife, and he had a dissertation, a pamphlet, or a song for everything. Olivares recalled him from his exile and gave him an honorary post in the palace, and from this time Quevedo resided almost constantly at court, exercising a kind of political and literary jurisdiction due to his varied relations and knowledge, but especially to his biting wit, which had no respect for persons. (31st of March 1621) he recommended himself to the first minister of the new king by celebrating his accession to power and saluting him as the vindicator of public morality in an epistle in the style of Juvenal. Though involved in the process against the duke, Quevedo remained faithful to his patron, and bore banishment with resignation. The disgrace of Osuna (1620) corn-' promised Quevedo, who was arrested and exiled to his estate at La Torre de Juan Abad in New Castile. The result was that he wrote several political works, particularly a lengthy treatise, La Politica de Dios (1626), in which he lays down the duties of kings by displaying to them how Christ has governed His church. Thus he learned politics - the one science which he had perhaps till then neglected, - initiated himself into the questions that divided Europe, and penetrated the ambitions of the neighbours of Spain, as well as the secret history of the intriguers protected by the favour of Philip III. In 1611 he fought a duel in which his adversary was killed, fled to Italy, and later on became secretary to Pedro Tellez Giren, duke de Osuna, and viceroy of Naples. At Valladolid, where the court resided from 1601 to 1606, he mingled freely with these intrigues and disorders, and lost the purity of his morals but not his uprightness and integrity.
The cynical greed of ministers, the meanness of their flatterers, the corruption of the royal officers, the financial scandals, afforded ample scope to Quevedo's talent as a painter of manners. He betook himself to the court and mingled with the society that surrounded Philip III.
His abstruse studies influenced Quevedo's style to them are due the pedantic traits and mania for quotations which characterize most of his works.
His fame reached beyond Spain at twenty-one he was in correspondence with ' Justus Lipsius on questions of Greek and Latin literature. Early left an orphan, Quevedo was educated at the university of Alcala, where he acquired a knowledge of classical and modern tongues - of Italian and French, Hebrew and Arabic, of philosophy, theology, civil law, and economics. FRANCISCO GOMEZ DE QUEVEDO Y VILLEGAS (1580-1645), Spanish satirist and poet, was born at Madrid, where his father, who came from the mountains of Burgos, was secretary to Anne of Austria, fourth wife of Philip II.
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