In Jean de la Taille's _Art de Tragedie_, prefixed to his _Sauel le Furieux_ (1572), a drama in which a biblical theme is fashioned after the manner of classical tragedy, there is to be found the most explicit and distinct antagonism to the old, irregular moralities, which are not modelled according to the true art and the pattern of the ancients. They are but _ameres epiceries_--words that recall Du Bellay. But curiously enough, Jean de la Taille differs entirely from Grevin, and asserts positively that France had as yet no real tragedies, except possibly a few translated from the classics. Waging war, as he is, against the crude formlessness of the national drama, perfect construction assumes for him a very high importance. "The principal point in tragedy," he says, "is to know how to dispose and fashion it well, so that the plot is well intertwined, mingled, interrupted, and resumed, ... and that there is nothing useless, without purpose, or out of place." For Jean de la Taille, as for most Renaissance writers, tragedy is the least popular and the most elegant and elevated form of poetry, exclusive of the epic. It deals with the pitiful ruin of great lords, with the inconstancy of fortune, with banishment, war, pestilence, famine, captivity, and the execrable cruelty of tyrants.[356] The end of tragedy is in fact to move and to sting the feelings and the emotions of men. The characters of tragedy--and this is the Aristotelian conception--should be neither extremely bad, such men as by their crimes merit punishment, nor perfectly good and holy, like Socrates, who was wrongfully put to death. Invented or allegorical characters, such as Death, Avarice, or Truth, are not to be employed. At the same time, Jean de la Taille, like Grevin, is not averse to the use of scriptural subjects in tragedy, although he cautions the poet against long-winded theological discussions. The Senecan drama was his model in treating of tragedy, as it was indeed that of the Renaissance in general; and tragedy approached more and more closely to the oratorical and sententious manner of the Latin poet. Ronsard, for example, asserts that tragedy and comedy are entirely _didascaliques et enseignantes_, and should be enriched by numerous excellent and rare _sentences_ (_sententiae_), "for in a few words the drama must teach much, being the mirror of human life."[357] Similarly, Du Bellay advises poets to embellish their poetry with grave _sentences_, and Pelletier praises Seneca principally because he is _sentencieux_. Vauquelin, in his _Art Poetique_, gives a metrical paraphrase of Aristotle's definition of tragedy:-- "Mais le sujet tragic est un fait imite De chose juste et grave, en ses vers limite; Auquel on y doit voir de l'affreux, du terrible, Un fait non attendu, qui tienne de l'horrible, Du pitoyable aussi, le coeur attendrissant D'un tigre furieux, d'un lion rugissant."[358]