MALHERBE, FRANCOIS DE (1555-1628), French poet, critic and translator, was born at Caen, the eldest son of another Francois de Malherbe, conseiller du roi in the magistracy of Caen.
He himself was educated at Caen, at Paris, at Heidelberg and at Basle. At the age of 21 he entered the household of Henri d'Angouleme, grand prior of France, the natural son of Henry II. He served this prince as secretary in Provence, and married there in 1581 Madelaine de Coriolis. After his patron's death he lived partly in Provence and partly in Normandy for many years, but very little is known of his life during this period. He was presented by his countryman, the Cardinal Du Perron, to Henry IV., and was at last summoned to court and endowed after one fashion or another. It is said that the pension promised him was not paid till the next reign. His father died in 16o6, and he came into his inheritance. From this time forward he lived at court, corresponding affectionately with his wife, but seeing her only twice in some 20 years. His old age was saddened by a great misfortune. His son, Marc Antoine, a young man of promise, fell in a duel in 1626. His father used his utmost in fluence to have the guilty parties brought to justice, but he died before the suit was decided (it is said in consequence of disease caught at the camp of La Rochelle, whither he had gone to petition the king). Malherbe's first poem Les Larmes de Saint Pierre appeared in 1587. His poetical work is scanty in amount. The beautiful Consolation a Duperier (c. 1599), in which occurs the famous line— "Et rose, elle a vecu ce que vivent les roses—" the odes to Marie de' Medici and to Louis XIII., and a few other pieces comprise all that is really worth remembering of him. His prose work is much more abundant, not less remarkable for care as to style and expression, and of greater positive value. It con sists of some translations of Livy and Seneca, and of a very large number of interesting and admirably written letters, many of which are addressed to Peiresc, the man of science of whom Gas sendi has left a delightful Latin Life. It contains also the Com mentaire sur Desportes, in which Malherbe's minute and carping style of verbal criticism is displayed on the great scale.
The personal character of Malherbe was far from amiable, but he exercised, or at least indicated the exercise of, a great and en during effect upon French literature, though by no means a wholly beneficial one. The lines of Boileau beginning Enfin Malherbe
vint are rendered only partially applicable by the extraordinary ignorance of older French poetry which distinguished that per emptory critic. But the good as well as bad side of Malherbe's theory and practice is excellently described by his contemporary and superior Regnier, who was animated against him, not merely by reason of his own devotion to Ronsard but because of' Mal herbe's discourtesy towards Regnier's uncle P. Desportes, whom the Norman poet had at first distinctly copied. These are the lines:— C'est proser de la rime et rimer de la prose.
This is perfectly true, and from the time of Malherbe dates that great and deplorable falling off of French poetry in its more poetic qualities, which was not made good till 183o. Nevertheless the critical and restraining tendency of Malherbe was not ill in place after the luxuriant importation and innovation of the Pleiade; and if he had confined himself to preaching greater technical per fection, and especially greater simplicity and purity in vocabulary and versification, instead of superciliously striking his pen through the great works of his predecessors, he would have deserved wholly well. As it was, his reforms helped to elaborate the kind of verse necessary for the classical tragedy, and that is the most that can be said for him.
Malherbe's works were published two years after his death. He left behind him an unenviable reputation for acerbity in his relations with his contemporaries, but his influence as a critic was great and far reaching. He represents the reaction against the innovations of the Pleiade and the beginning of the strict French classical school.
The chief authorities for the biography of Malherbe are the Vie de Malherbe by his friend and pupil Racan, and the long Historiette which Tallemant des Reaux has devoted to him. The standard edition is that of Ludovic Lalanne (5 vols., 1862-69).
See A. Gaste, La Jeunesse de Malherbe (189o) ; G. Brunot, La Doctrine de Malherbe (1891) ; V. Bourrienne, Points obscurs dans la vie normande de Malherbe (1895) ; and the duc de Broglie's "Mal herbe" in Les Grands ecrivains francais.