Ronsard uses “cæsura” for “elision,” a catachresis in which he had followers, and which even affected Dryden. Greek and Roman proper names are, where possible, to be frenchified in termination. “The old words of our romances” (this is of the first importance) are not to be ejected, but to be chosen with care and prudence. Terms of art and technical similes are to be sought out with extreme diligence, so as to supply life and nerve to the book. Dialect-words may be used at need; the example of the Greeks being invoked here—perhaps a little rashly. Invention, says Ronsard, is the working of the Imagination; but he seems still inclined to the old limitation of this word to the retailing of images, and reprobates more strongly than is perhaps necessary or desirable _ces inventions fantastiques et mélancholiques qui ne se rapportent non plus l’une à l’autre que les songes entrecoupés des frénétiques_. There is to be first of all (note the Frenchman) Order and Disposition in poetical devices. ----- Footnote 174: _Ed. cit._, vii. 317-337 Footnote 175: Alphonse Delbène, Abbé of Haute-Combe in Savoy. ----- This order and this disposition are to be secured by a happy nature in the first place, and by a careful study of good models in the second. Among these good models, “those who have illustrated our language in the last fifteen years” (_i.e._, since the _Défense_) are to be counted in; and (this was added later) foreign modern languages are also to be carefully studied for the enriching of the mother tongue. “Elocution” is nothing else than “a propriety and splendour of words well chosen, and ornamented with grave and short sentences, which make verses shine, like as do precious stones, well mounted, the fingers of some great seignior.”[176] The vocabulary must be copious and composed of well-sifted words, with plentiful description and comparison, moulded specially on Homer. The common form of “great” poem-making follows, with reference to Aristotle as well as Horace, with caution against trite and otiose epithets, against epithet-strings _à l’Italienne_, but with a strong praise of the _mot propre_. Rhyme is treated rather briefly; and then Ronsard drops to minutiæ of _e_'s and _h_'s, discusses Alexandrines (which, in a later edition, he says he should have employed in the _Franciade_ but for powerful command) and “common” (decasyllabic) verse, and others, passes to some grammatical and orthographical cautions, and ends with the promise, unluckily never fulfilled, of a longer _Poetic_ some day. ----- Footnote 176: “Jewels five words long That on the stretched forefinger of all time Sparkle for ever.” —TENNYSON, _The Princess_. -----