The subject may have been some great malefactor.

And when he sentenced that great malefactor, the cause of so much mischief, this was all he said, Why hast thou troubled us?

Might he not rather prove to be the greatest malefactor that the world had seen?

Incapable of gaining a footing on any height, even of infamy, always remaining half-way uphill, a little above petty rascals, a little below great malefactors.