The Abbe d'Aubignac speaks of Hardy as "arresting the progress of the French theatre"; and whatever practical improvements the French theatre owes to him, there can be little doubt that for a certain number of years the evolution of the classical drama was partly arrested by his efforts and the efforts of his school. But during this very period the foundations of the great literature that was to come were being built on classical lines; and the continuance of the classical tradition after 1630 was due to three distinct causes, each of which will be discussed by itself as briefly as possible. These three causes were the reaction against the Pleiade, the second influx of the critical ideas of the Italian Renaissance, and the influence of the rationalistic philosophy of the period. II. _The Reaction against the Pleiade_ The reaction against the Pleiade was effected, or at least begun, by Malherbe. Malherbe's power or message as a poet is of no concern here; in his role of grammarian and critic he accomplished certain important and widespread reforms in French poetry. These reforms were connected chiefly, if not entirely, with the external or formal side of poetry. His work was that of a grammarian, of a prosodist--in a word, that of a purist. He did not, indeed, during his lifetime, publish any critical work, or formulate any critical system. But the reforms he executed were on this account no less influential or enduring. His critical attitude is to be looked for in the memoirs of his life written by his disciple Racan, and in his own _Commentaire sur Desportes_, which was not published in its entirety until very recently.[422] This commentary consists of a series of manuscript notes written by Malherbe about the year 1606 in the margins of a copy of Desportes. These notes are of a most fragmentary kind; they seldom go beyond a word or two of disapproval, such as _faible_, _mal concu_, _superflu_, _sans jugement_, _sottise_, or _mal imagine_; and yet, together with a few detached utterances recorded in his letters and in the memoirs by Racan, they indicate quite clearly the critical attitude of Malherbe and the reforms he was bent on bringing about.