DIEGO DE TORRES Y VILLAROEL (1696—1759?)  ,

Spanish miscellaneous writer, was born in 1696 at Salamanca, where his father was bookseller to the university . In his teens Torres escaped to Portugal where he enlisted under a false name; he next moved to Madrid, living from hand to mouth as a hawker; in 1717 he was ordained subdeacon, resumed his studies at Salamanca, and in 1726 became professor of mathematics at the university . A friend of his having stabbed a priest, Torres was suspected of complicity, and once more fled to Portugal, where he remained till his innocence was proved . He then returned to his chair, which he resigned in 1751 to act as steward to two noblemen; he was certainly alive in 1758, but the date of his death is not known . Tones had so slight a smattering of mathematics that his appointment as professor was thought scandalous even in his own scandalous age; yet he quickly acquired a store of knowledge which he displayed with serene assurance . His almanacs, his verses, his farces, his devotional and pseudo-scientific writings show that he possessed the alert B . DE-TORRICELLI 61 adaptiveness of the born adventurer; but all that remains of his fourteen volumes (1745—1752) is his autobiography, an amusing record of cynical effrontery and successful imposture .