Page:Grierson Herbert - First Half of the Seventeenth Century.djvu/306

286 to be found in the history of the phases through which French drama passed between the opening of the century and the appearance of the Cid. Differently as the elements were ultimately blended, the French drama, like the English, was the outcome of an amalgamation of the classical drama of the Renaissance and plays which were directly descended from the mediæval drama. The man who brought together the different seeds and began the fertilisation of the French stage was Alexandre Hardy.

The older academic drama had not quite come to an end when the sixteenth century closed. Larivey was yet to write the last of his comedies, based on Latin and Italian models. Of those who were still writing classical tragedies, the most interesting was Montchrestien. Antoine de Montchrestien (1575-1621), whose adventures and stirring career closed at the stake, was the author of six tragedies on classical, historical, and Scriptural themes—Hector, La Reine d'Écosse, La Carthaginoise, Les Lacènes, David, Aman—in the usual Senecan style with long, often eloquent speeches and meditative musical choruses. There is no pretence of action, of developing a story from the interaction of characters