In this eloquent passage the conception of the poet as an essentially moral being,--a doctrine first enunciated by Strabo, and repeated by Minturno and others,--and Boccaccio's notion of poetry as originally an allegorical theology, are both introduced into French criticism. Elsewhere Ronsard repeats the mediaeval concept that poets "d'un voile divers Par fables ont cache le vray sens de leurs vers."[339] It will be seen also that for Ronsard, poetry is essentially a matter of inspiration; and in the poem just quoted, the _Discours a Jacques Grevin_, he follows the Platonic conception of divine inspiration or madness. A few years later Montaigne said of poetry that "it is an easier matter to frame it than to know it; being base and humble, it may be judged by the precepts and art of it, but the good and lofty, the supreme and divine, are beyond rules and above reason. It hath no community with our judgment, but ransacketh and ravisheth the same."[340] In his various critical works Ronsard shows considerable indebtedness to the Italian theorists, especially to Minturno. He does not attempt any formal definition of poetry, but its function is described as follows: "As the end of the orator is to persuade, so that of the poet is to imitate, invent, and represent the things that are, that can be, or that the ancients regarded as true."[341] The concluding clause of this passage is intended to justify the modern use of the ancient mythology; but the whole passage seems primarily to follow Scaliger[342] and Minturno.[343] It is to be observed that verse is not mentioned in this definition as an essential requirement of poetry. It was indeed a favorite contention of his, and one for which he was indebted to the Italians, that all who write in verse are not poets. Lucan and Silius Italicus have robed history with the raiment of verse; but according to Ronsard they would have done better in many ways to have written in prose. The poet, unlike the historian, deals with the verisimilar and the probable; and while he cannot be responsible for falsehoods which are in opposition to the truth of things, any more than the historian can, he is not interested to know whether or not the details of his poems are actual historical facts. Verisimilitude, and not fact, is therefore the test of poetry. In Vauquelin de la Fresnaye may be found most of the Aristotelian distinctions in regard to imitation, harmony, rhythm, and poetic theory in general; but these distinctions he derived, as has already been said, not directly from Aristotle, but in all probability from Minturno. Poetry is defined as an art of imitation:-- "C'est un art d'imiter, un art de contrefaire Que toute poesie, ainsi que de pourtraire."[344]