all succeeding Latin epicists copied Virgil; as Italians copied
Ariosto and Tasso; as every one who can copies Shakespeare; as the
French school copied, or thought they copied, "The Classics," and as
a matter of duty used to justify any bold image in their notes, not
by its originality, but by its being 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