No mercy was shown him, nor did he in the least deserve mercy; he had wantonly attacked the peace of the country, and had cruelly libelled James.
His patron died when Malherbe was on a visit in his native province, and for a time he had no particular employment, though by some servile verses he obtained a considerable gift of money from Henry III., whom he afterwards libelled.
In 1607 Gaspar Scioppius, then in the service of the Jesuits, whom he afterwards so bitterly libelled, published his Scaliger hypobolimaeus (" The Supposititious Scaliger"), a quarto volume of more than four hundred pages, written with consummate ability, in an admirable and incisive style, with the entire disregard for truth which Scioppius always displayed, and with all the power of his accomplished sarcasm.
