123 



TORENO, DON JOSE, COUNT OF. 



TORFAEUS. 



124 



uncommon at that time in Spain; as it included the study of English 

 and even German as well as French and Italian. After the national 

 insurrection of the 2nd of May 1808, in which he took a part, lie 

 returned to Oviedo where, as Viscount of Matarroaa,he held an heredi- 

 tary seat in the Junta, and when the city rose against Napoleon he 

 was selected, from his knowledge of English, to make his way to 

 London to ask the assistance of England. In company with Don 

 Angel de la Vega he got on board of a Jersey privateer, and was 

 received at London with open arms by Canning. After spending 

 aorne months in England, where he made the acquaintance of Wilber- 

 force, Windham, and Sheridan, he returned to Spain in December, 

 and, having lost his father in the interval, he succeeded to the title of 

 Count of Toreno. He was sent to the Cortes as a member for the 

 Asturias when a year too young to be able legally to take his seat, 

 but by a vote of the Cortes on the llth February 1811 he enjoyed 

 the distinction of being specially exempted from the operation of the 

 law. Young as he was he took a prominent part in the discussions on 

 the constitution of 1812, and advocated with success two of the 

 measures which most contributed to its subsequent downfall one, 

 that the Cortes should consist of a single chamber instead of two, 

 and the other that the power of the king should be so restricted that 

 all legislation should depend on the decision of the Cortes only. On 

 the return of Ferdinand he was a marked man ; when the celebrated 

 decree of Valencia came forth, by which the Cortes was dissolved and 

 many of its members thrown into prison, he was fortunately on his 

 estates in the country and had time to escape to Portucal. As he 

 found there was no hope of resistance in Spain, he came to London 

 where he was the first emigrant from the tyranny of Ferdinand, as he 

 had been the herald of resistance to Napoleon I. He received in 

 London the intelligence that his estates had been confiscated and him- 

 self condemned to death. His brother-in-law Porlier, who had married 

 one of his four sisters, made an ineffectual attempt at insurrection, 

 and was taken and executed. Toreno, who in 1816 was living in 

 France, was thrown into prison for a time on suspicion by the Decazes 

 ministry, who interrogated him if he was not in habits of intercourse 

 with the Duke of Wellington and General Alava, two persons whom 

 it appears that the king of Spain then regarded as enemies. The 

 Spanish revolution of 1820 recalled Toreno to Madrid, but he was 

 now older and cooler than he had been, and saw with disapprobation 

 many of the measures of the liberal party. His life was in con- 

 sequence threatened in the Cortes, his house in which his sister, the 

 widow of Porlier, resided, was attacked and, saya Cueto his biographer, 

 " levelled to the ground." The king, on the other hand, pressed him 

 to become prime-minister, and when he declined named his friend 

 Martinez de la Rosa whom Toreno had recommended. Finally, when 

 the second French invasion had re-established the absolute king, 

 Toreno found himself again a banished man, in favour with neither 

 party, and this time his exile lasted nearly ten years. Most of it was 

 passed in France and England, some in Germany and Switzerland, in 

 the execution of a plan he had conceived of 'writing the history of 

 the war of independence, for which he had begun collecting materials 

 during his first emigration. He commenced the composition in 1827 

 at Paris, and finished the tenth book in the same city on the night of 

 the 28th of July 1830, in the midst of the insurrection which raged 

 around. 



The amnesty of 1832 restored him to Spain, but he was not per- 

 mitted to reside in Madrid till after the death of King Ferdinand. In 

 1834, on the promulgation of the ' Estatute Real ' by Queen Christina, 

 on the recommendation of his friend Martinez de la Rosa, he was 

 named minister of finance. The measures he proposed for liquidating 

 the foreign debt occupied his attention almost exclusively for some 

 time, and prevented his sharing the unpopularity of his chief, so that, 

 when in 1835 Martinez de la Rosa was compelled to retire, Toreno 

 succeeded to his place as minister of foreign affairs and president of 

 the council. Unfortunately for himself he admitted to his own post 

 of minister of finance Mendizabal, who, with his dazzling schemes, 

 soon threw him into the shade. Toreno, who was now decidedly a 

 " Moderado," grew more and more unpopular ; insurrections burst 

 forth, which he wished to repress by forcible means, but his colleague 

 thwarted him, and the country was not with him. In September 

 1835 he was driven to resign, and Mendizabal succeeded as head of 

 the cabinet. On a dissolution of -the Cortes, Mendizabal was returned 

 by the electors of seven different places, and Toreno and Martinez de 

 la Rosa were left without a seat. The disgraceful revolution of La 

 Granja followed, the constitution of 1812 was proclaimed, and Toreno, 

 now its declared opponent, found it expedient to resume his historical 

 studies in Paris and London, where he brought bis history to a con- 

 clusion, at the time that in Madrid he was sentenced to forfeit all his 

 honours and estates. In a few months however he was again allowed 

 to return to Spain, and in the Cortes of subsequent years he vindicated 

 his character against an accusation of corruption brought against him 

 by General Seoane. The revolution of Barcelona drove him into 

 banishment yet another time, and it was the last. Toreno, after a 

 tour in Germany and Italy, was in Paris, on his return, it is s.iiil, to 

 Spain, when seized with a cerebral disease which carried him off in a 

 few days. He died at Paris on the 16th of September 1843 ; but his 

 remains were conveyed to his country and deposited in the church of 

 St. Isidro at Madrid. 



Toreno's ' History of the Insurrection, War, and Revolution of Spain' 

 (' Historia del Levantamiento Guerra y Revolucion de Espaua '), is 

 the great Spanish work on that interesting subject. That it is a model 

 of Spanish composition is affirmed by the best critics of that country. 

 Its merits as a narrative are more liable to question, for there appears 

 a languor and general want of spirit in its details, which surprise the 

 reader who is aware that its author was not only an eye-witness of 

 many of the events he describes, but also an actor in some of them. 

 The editor of the edition of 1848, published after the author's death, 

 speaks of the "carefulness and preciseness" of the history "in which," 

 he remarks, "the most insignificant French detachment is never men- 

 tiojied without specifying the name of the chief who commanded it." 

 A merit of more importance which Toreno's history possesses is that 

 of a calm judicial tone, which favourably contrasts with the arrogant 

 impetuosity of some English historians of that memorable contest. On 

 the whole, it can only be considered like Southey's ' History of the 

 Peninsular War,' as a temporary substitute and a collection of mate- 

 rials for the great work on the subject, with which it may be hoped 

 that some future historian will enrich the literature of his country. 

 The ' Historia del Levantamiento ' has been translated into French 

 and German, and a Spanish edition of it was printed by Baudry of 

 Paris in his collection of the Spanish classics. The best edition of it 

 is that published in four octavo volumes at Madrid in 1848, after the 

 author's death, with his additions and corrections. 



TORFAEUS, or TORMO'DUS, the assumed literary names after 

 having been introduced to the learned world as a Latin author, of 

 THOEMOD THOKVESON. Little or nothing is known about his early life. 

 He was born at Engoe, a small island on the southern coast of Iceland, 

 of poor parents, who however were in sufficiently good circumstances 

 to give him an outfit (for the institution, like all public schools in 

 Iceland, was a free-school) for the, Latin school at Skalholdt, where 

 according to Iceland custom, he became a good classical scholar ; so 

 much so, that upon his arrival in Copenhagen, his choice and fluent 

 Latin surprised the professors there. In 1654 he was entered as a 

 free student at the university of Copenhagen, where he remained till 

 1657. In 1659 he was captured and made prisoner by a Swedish 

 privateer on his return from Christiansand in Norway. This circum- 

 stance appears to have given him some notoriety, for immediately after 

 his release and return to Copenhagen, king Frederick III. appointed 

 him interpreter of Icelandic manuscripts, and a short time afterwards 

 sent him to Iceland for the purpose of collecting manuscripts, which 

 with the assistance of his warm friend and patron, Brynhjulf Swend- 

 son, bishop of Skalholdt, he accomplished so well, that the collection 

 which he brought back, and which is still preserved in the Royal 

 Library in Copenhagen, is considered the best in the world for ancient 

 Scandinavian history and literature. The king gave him, shortly 

 after his return, as a reward for his zeal, and to enable him to pursue 

 his studies, a small appointment at Stawanger in Norway. This 

 office however he resigned in 1667, upon being appointed keeper of 

 the king's collection of antiquities. He made soon afterwards another 

 voyage to Iceland, for the purpose of taking poss- ssion of some little 

 property, to which he had succeeded after the death of his father and 

 of his elder brother; and after his return the same year, he went to 

 Amsterdam for some literary purpose. During his voyage back ho 

 was shipwrecked at Skageu ; and on his journey by land to Copen- 

 hagen, he was insulted and attacked in a small town in Sealand by one 

 of his countrymen, whom, iii defending himself, he accidentally killed. 

 This circumstance caused great excitement. He surrendered himself 

 immediately, was tried, and sentenced to death. However by an 

 appeal to a superior court, and an "appellatio ad tronum," or appeal 

 to the throne, as it is termed in Danish jurisprudence, his sentence 

 was commuted into a fine, which he paid, and was released ; but as it 

 was impossible for the king to retain a man in his service with a 

 blemish on his reputation, he was dismissed, and lost his salary. He 

 then retired to a small farm in Norway, the property of his wife, 

 where he lived without any official employment till the year 16S2, 

 when Christian V., having succeeded to the Danish throne, recalled 

 him, and appointed him royal historiographer, and an assessor in the 

 consistory, or board of education, with a salary sufficient to enable 

 him to live independently and to pursue his studies. This appoint- 

 ment he kept till his death. He commenced his most important work 

 the ' History of Norway,' and finished it as far as the Union of Calaiar, 

 when, unfortunately, ill health compelled him to surrender his favourite 

 task to his friend Professor Reitzer. He was married twice : his first 

 wife died in 1695 : he married again in 1709 ; and in 1719 he died, 

 very far advanced in years, without issue. His works, printed, as 

 well as in manuscript, are very numerous, and exhibit deep know- 

 ledge and indefatigable research into ancient Scandinavian history. 

 The manuscripts he left are preserved at the Royal Library in Copen- 

 hagen : as to his published works, it will be sufficient to mention the 

 most important, which are : ' Historia Rerum Orcadensium, libri iii.,' 

 fol., Hafniao, 1715; 'Series Dynastarum et Regum Danise h Skialdo 

 ad Gormum Grandovem,' 4to, Hafniao, 1712 ; ' Historia Rerum Norve- 

 gicarum ad Annum 1387,' 4 vols. fol., Hafniao, 1711. A very accurate 

 account of his later works, together with a collection of private letters, 

 which show at least that he wrote elegant Latin, is to be found in a 

 work published by the celebrated Danish historian Peter Suhm, under 

 the title, ' In Effigiem Thormodi Torfaei, una cum Torfaeanis,' &c., 



