already in Claudian, or Lucan,
or Virgil, or Ovid; as every poetaster, and a great many who were
more than poetasters, twenty years ago, used to copy Scott and Byron,
and as all poetasters now are copying the very same models as Mr.
Smith, and failing while he succeeds.

We by no means agree in the modern outcry for "originality." Is it
absolutely demanded that no poet shall say anything whatsoever that
any other poet has said? If so, Mr. Smith may well submit to a blame
which he will bear in common with Shakespeare, Chaucer, Pope, and
many another great name; and especially with Raphael himself, who
made no scruple of adopting not merely points of style, but single
motives and incidents, from contemporaries and predecessors. Who can
look at any of his earlier pictures, the Crucifixion for instance, at
present in Lord Ward's gallery at the Egyptian Hall, without seeing
that he has not merely felt the influence of Perugino, but copied
him; tried deliberately to be as like his master as he could? Was
this plagiarism? If so, all education, it would seem, must be a mere
training in plagiarism. For how is the student to learn, except by
copying his master's models? Is the young painter or sculptor a
plagiarist because he spends the first, often the best, years of his
life in copying Greek statues; or the schoolboy, for toiling at the
reproduction of Latin metres and images, in what are honestly and
fittingly called "copies" of verses. And what if the young artist
shall choose, as Mr. Smith has done, to put a few drawings into the
exhibition, or to carve and sell a few statuettes? What if the
schoolboy, grown into a gownsman, shall contribute his share to a set
of "Arundines Cami" or "Prolusiones Etonienses?" Will any one who
really knows what art or education means complain of them for having
imitated their models, however servilely? Will he not rather hail
such an imitation as a fair proof, first of the student's reverence
for authority--a more important element of "genius" than most young
folks fancy--and next, of his possessing any artistic power
whatsoever? For, surely, if the greater contains the less, the power
of creating must contain that of imitating. A young author's power
of accurate imitation is, after all, the primary and indispensable
test of his having even the capability of becoming a poet. He who
cannot write in a style which he does know, will certainly not be
able to invent a new style for