ath, these innovations were considered
inadmissible; and if the success of the work had been such as to elicit
critical discussion, the necessity of five acts and a death would
doubtless have been generally insisted on].

Although no instructed mind will for a moment doubt the immense
advantage of the stimulus and culture derived from a reverent
familiarity with the works of our great predecessors and
contemperaries, there is a pernicious error which has been fostered by
many instructed minds, rising out of their reverence for greatness and
their forgetfulness of the ends of Literature. This error is the notion
of "models," and of fixed canons drawn from the practice of great
artists. It substitutes Imitation for Invention; reproduction of old
types instead of the creation of new. There is more bad than good work
produced in consequence of the assiduous following of models. And we
shall seldom be very wide of the mark if in our estimation of youthful
productions we place more reliance on their departures from what has
been already done, than on their resemblances to the best artists. An
energetic crudity, even a riotous absurdity, has more promise in it
than a clever and elegant mediocrity, because it shows that the young
man is speaking out of his own heart, and struggling to express himself
in his own way rather than in the way he finds in other men's books.
The early works of original writers are usually very bad; then succeeds
a short interval of imitation in which the influence of some favourite
author is distinctly traceable; but this does not last long, the native
independence of the mind reasserts itself, and although perhaps
academic and critical demands are somewhat disregarded, so that the
original writer on account of his very originality receives but slight
recognition from the authorities, nevertheless if there is any real
power in the voice it soon makes itself felt in the world. There is one
word of counsel I would give to young authors, which is that they
should be humbly obedient to the truth proclaimed by their own souls,
and haughtily indifferent to the remonstrances of critics founded
solely on any departure from the truths expressed by others. It by no
means follows that because a work is unlike works that have gone before
it, therefore it is excellent or even tolerable; it may be original in
error or in ugliness; but one thing is certain, that in proportion to
its close fidelity to the matter and