=Toralva= (_The licentiate_), mounted on a cane, was conveyed through the air with his eyes shut; in twelve hours he arrived at Rome, and the following morning returned to Madrid. During his flight he opened his eyes once, and found himself so near the moon that he could have touched it with his finger.--Cervantes, _Don Quixote_, II. iii. 5 (1615). (See TORRALBA.) =Tordenskiol= [_Tor´.den.skole_], or the “Thunder-Shield.” So Peder Wessel, vice-admiral of Denmark (in the reign of Christian V.), was called. He was brought up as a tailor, and died in a duel. From Denmark thunders Tordenskiol; Let each to heaven commend his soul, And fly. Longfellow, _King Christian_ [_V._]. =Torfe= (_Mr. George_), provost of Orkney.--Sir W. Scott, _The Pirate_ (time, William III.). =Tormes= (_Lazarillo de_), by Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (sixteenth century); a kind of Gil Blas, whose adventures and roguish tricks are the first of a very popular sort of novel called the _Gusto Picaresco_. Lesage has imitated it in his _Gil Blas_, and we have numberless imitations in our own language. (See TYLL OWLYGLASS.) The ideal Yankee, in whom European prejudice has combined the attractive traits of a Gines de Passamonte, a Joseph Surface, a Lazarillo de Tormes, a Scapin, a Thersitês, and an Autolycus.--W. H. Hurlburt. ⁂ “Gines de Passamonte,” in _Don Quixote_, by Cervantes; “Joseph Surface,” in _The School for Scandal_, by Sheridan; “Scapin,” in _Les Fourberies de Scapin_, by Molière; “Thersitês,” in Homer’s Iliad, i.; “Autolycus,” in the _Winter’s Tale_, by Shakespeare. =Tormot=, youngest son of Torquil, of the Oak (foster-father of Eachin M’Ian).--Sir W. Scott, _Fair Maid of Perth_ (time, Henry IV.). =Torquato=, that is, Torquato Tasso, the Italian poet, author of _Jerusalem Delivered_ (1544-1595). After the publication of his great epic, Tasso lived in the court of Ferrara, and conceived a violent passion for Leonora, one of the duke’s sisters, but fled, in 1577, to Naples. Torquato’s tongue Was tuned for slavish pæans at the throne Of tinsel pomp. Akenside, _Pleasures of Imagination_, ii. (1744). =Torquil of the Oak=, foster-father of Eachin M’Ian. He was chief of the clan Quhele, and had eight sons, the finest men in the clan. Torquil was a seer, who was supposed to have communication with the invisible world, and he declared a demon had told him that Eachin or Hector M’Ian, was the only man in the two hostile clans of Chattan and Quhele who would come off scathless in the approaching combat (ch xxvi.).--Sir W. Scott, _Fair Maid of Perth_ (time, Henry IV.).