SCIOPPIUS, Gaspar, a learned German writer of the seventeenth century, was born at Neumark, in the Upper Palatinate, on the 27th of May 1576. He studied at the university with so much success, that at the age of sixteen he became an author, and published books, says Ferrari, which deserve to be admired by old men. But his dispositions did not correspond with his genius. Naturally passionate and malevolent, he assaulted without mercy the characters of eminent men. He abjured the system of the Protestants, and became a Roman Catholic, about the year 1599; but his character remained the same. He possessed all those qualities which fitted him for making a distinguished figure in the literary world; imagination, memory, profound learning, and invincible impudence. He was familiar with the terms of reproach in most languages. He was entirely ignorant of the manners of the world. He neither showed respect to his superiors, nor did he behave with decency to his equals. He was possessed with a frenzy of an uncommon kind, being a perfect firebrand, scattering around him, as if for his amusement, the most atrocious calumnies. Joseph Scaliger, above all others, was the object of his satire. That learned man having drawn up the history of his own family, and deduced its genealogy from princes, was severely attacked by Scioppius, who ridiculed his high pretensions. Scaliger in his turn wrote a book entitled the Life and Parentage of Gaspar Scioppius, in which he informs us that the father of Scioppius had been successively a grave-digger, a journeyman stationer, a hawker, a soldier, a miller, and a brewer of beer. These statements inflamed Scioppius with greater eagerness to attack his antagonist. He collected all the calumnies that had been thrown out against Scaliger, and formed them into a huge volume, as if he had intended to crush him at once. He treated with great contempt the king of England, James I., in his Ecclesiasticus, and in his Collyrium Regium Britannia Regi graviter ex oculis laboranti munere missum, that is, An Eye-salve for his Britannic Majesty. In one of his works he had the audacity to abuse Henry IV. of France in a most scurrilous manner, on which account his book was burned at Paris. He was hung in effigy in a farce which was represented before the king of England, but he gloried in his dishonour. Provoked with his insolence to their sovereign, the servants of the English ambassador assaulted him at Madrid, and corrected him severely; but he boasted of the wounds he had received. He published more than thirty defamatory libels against the Jesuits; and, what is very surprising, in the place where he declaims with most virulence against that society, he subscribes his own name with expressions of devotion: “I Gaspar Scioppius, already on the brink of the grave, and ready to appear before the tribunal of Jesus Christ, to give an account of my works.” Towards the end of his life he employed himself in studying the Apocalypse, and affirmed that he had found the key to that mysterious book. He sent some of his expositions to Cardinal Mazarin; but the cardinal did not find it convenient to read them.

Ferrari tells us, that during the last fourteen years of his life he shut himself up in a small apartment, where he devoted himself solely to study. The same writer acquaints us, that he could repeat the Scriptures almost entirely by heart; but his good qualities were eclipsed by his vices. For his love of slander, and the furious assaults which he made upon the most eminent men, he was called the Cerberus of literature. He accuses even Cicero of barbarisms and improprieties. He died on the 19th of November 1649, at the age of seventy-four, at Padua, the only retreat which remained to him from the multitude of enemies whom he had created. Four hundred books are ascribed to him, which are said to discover great genius and learning. The chief of these are, 1. Verisimilium Libri iv. 1596, in 8vo; 2. Commentarius de Arte Critica, 1661, in 8vo; 3. De sua ad[7:19:693] Catholicos Migratione, 1660, in 8vo; 4. Notationes Criticae in Phaedrum, in Priapeia, Patavii, 1664, in 8vo; 5. Suspectarum Sectionum Libri v. 1664, in 8vo; 6. Classicum Belli Sacri, 1619, in 4to; 7. Collyrium Regium, 1611, in 8vo; 8. Grammatica Philosophica, 1644, in 8vo; 9. Relatio ad Reges et Principes de Stratagematibus Societatis Jesu, 1641, in 12mo. This last-mentioned work was published under the name of Alphonse de Vargas.