By this time, then, Aristotle's theory of tragedy, as restated by the Italians, had become part of French criticism. The actual practice of the French drama had been modified by the introduction of these rules; and they had played so important a part that Grevin, in his _Bref Discours pour l'Intelligence de ce Theatre_, prefixed to his _Mort de Cesar_ (1562), could say that French tragedy had already attained perfection, even when regarded from the standpoint of the Aristotelian canons. "Our tragedies," says Grevin, "have been so well polished that there is nothing left now to be desired,--I speak of those which are composed according to the rules of Aristotle and Horace." Grevin's _Discours_ was published the year after Scaliger's _Poetics_, but shows no indication of Scaligerian influence. His definition of tragedy is based on a most vague and incomplete recollection of Aristotle, "Tragedy, as Aristotle says in his _Poetics_, is an imitation or representation of some action that is illustrious and great in itself, such as the death of Caesar." He shows his independence or his ignorance of Scaliger by insisting on the inferiority of Seneca, whom Scaliger had rated above all the Greeks; and he shows his independence of the ancients by substituting a crowd of Caesar's soldiers for the singers of the older chorus, on the ground that there ought not to be singing in the representation of tragedy any more than there is in actual life itself, for tragedy is a representation of truth or of what has the appearance of truth. There are in Grevin's _Discours_ several indications that the national feeling had not been entirely destroyed by the imitation of the classics; but a discussion of this must be left for a later chapter.