ridiculed those scholars who
were servile imitators of Cicero; so servile, that they would employ no
expression but what was found in the works of that writer; everything
with them was Ciceronianised. This dialogue is written with great
humour. Julius Caesar Scaliger, the father, who was then unknown to the
world, had been long looking for some occasion to distinguish himself;
he now wrote a defence of Cicero, but which in fact was one continued
invective against Erasmus: he there treats the latter as illiterate, a
drunkard, an impostor, an apostate, a hangman, a demon hot from hell!
The same Scaliger, acting on the same principle of distinguishing
himself at the cost of others, attacked Cardan's best work _De
Subtilitate_: his criticism did not appear till seven years after the
first edition of the work, and then he obstinately stuck to that
edition, though Cardan had corrected it in subsequent ones; but this
Scaliger chose, that he might have a wider field for his attack. After
this, a rumour spread that Cardan had died of vexation from Julius
Caesar's invincible pen; then Scaliger pretended to feel all the regret
possible for a man he had killed, and whom he now praised: however, his
regret had as little foundation as his triumph; for Cardan outlived
Scaliger many years, and valued his criticisms too cheaply to have
suffered them to have disturbed his quiet. All this does not exceed the
_Invectives_ of Poggius, who has thus entitled several literary libels
composed against some of his adversaries, Laurentius Valla, Philelphus,
&c., who returned the poisoned chalice to his own lips; declamations of
scurrility, obscenity, and calumny!

Scioppius was a worthy successor of the Scaligers: his favourite
expression was, that he had trodden down his adversary.

Scioppius was a critic, as skilful as Salmasius or Scaliger, but still
more learned in the language of abuse. This cynic was the Attila of
authors. He boasted that he had occasioned the deaths of Casaubon and
Scaliger. Detested and dreaded as the public scourge, Scioppius, at the
close of his life, was fearful he should find no retreat in which he
might be secure.

The great Casaubon employs the dialect of St. Giles's in his furious
attacks on the learned Dalechamps, the Latin translator of Athenaeus. To
this great physician he stood more deeply indebted than he chose to
confess; and to conceal the claims of this literary creditor, he called
out _Vesanum!_ _Insanu