The mind of a man of genius is a fertile and pleasant field, pleasant as Elysium, and fertile as Tempe ; it enjoys a perpetual spring. Of that spring, Originals are the fairest flowers : Imitations are of quicker growth, but fainter bloom. Imitations are of two kinds ; one of nature, one of authors : The first we call Originals, and confine the term Imitation to the second. … Originals are, and ought to be, great favourites, for they are great benefactors they extend the republic of letters, and add a new province to its dominion : Imitators only give us a sort of duplicates of what we had, possibly much better, before ; increasing the mere drug of books, while all that makes them valuable, knowlege and genius, are at a stand.
+++++The pen of an original writer, like Armida’s wand, out of a barren waste calls a blooming spring : Out of that blooming spring an Imitator is a transplanter of laurels, which sometimes die on removal, always languish in a foreign soil.
+++++But suppose an Imitator to be most excellent (and such there are), yet still he but nobly builds on another’s foundation ; his debt is, at least, equal to his glory ; which therefore, on the balance, cannot be very great. On the contrary, an Original, tho’ but indifferent (its Originality being set aside), yet has something to boast ; it is something to say with him in Horace,
+++++Meo sum Pauper in aere ; [I am poor, but I am not in debt]
and to share ambition with no less than Cæsar, who declared he had rather be the first in a village, than the second at Rome.
+++++Still farther : An Imitator shares his crown, if he has one, with the chosen object of his imitation ; an Original enjoys an undivided applause. An Original may be said to be of a vegetable nature ; it rises spontaneously from the vital root of genius ; it grows, it is not made : Imitations are often a sort of manufacture wrought up by those mechanics, art, and labour, out of pre-existent materials not their own.
+++++Again : We read Imitation with somewhat of his languor, who listens to a twice-told tale : Our spirits rouze at an Original ; that is a perfect stranger, and all throng to learn what news from a foreign land : And tho’ it comes, like an Indian prince, adorned with feathers only, having little of weight ; yet of our attention it will rob the more solid, if not equally new : Thus every telescope is lifted at a new-discovered star ; it makes a hundred astronomers in a moment, and denies equal notice to the sun. But if an Original, by being as excellent, as new, adds admiration to surprize, then are we at the writer’s mercy ; on the strong wing of his imagination, we are snatched from Britain to Italy, from climate to climate, from pleasure to pleasure ; we have no home, no thought, of our own ; till the magician drops his pen : And then falling down into ourselves, we awake to flat realities, lamenting the change, like the beggar who dreamt himself a prince. -p6-8

After all, the first ancients had no merit in being Originals : They could not be Imitators. Modern writers have a choice to make ; and therefore have a merit in their power. They may soar in the regions of liberty or move in the soft fetters of easy imitation ; and imitation has as many plausible reasons to urge as Pleasure had to offer to Hercules. Hercules made the choice of an hero, and so became immortal. -p10

Must we then, you say, not imitate antient authors ? Imitate them, by all means ; but imitate aright. … Tread in [Homer’s] steps to the sole fountain of immortality ; drink where he drank, at the true Helicon, that is, at the breast of nature : Imitate ; but imitate not the Composition, but the Man. -p11

…rules, like crutches, are a needful aid to the lame, tho’ an impediment to the strong. -p14

‘Genius often then deserves most to be praised, when it is most sure to be condemned ; that is, when its excellence, from mounting high, to weak eyes is quite out of sight.’ -p14

…by a spirit of Imitation we counteract nature, and thwart her design. She brings us into the world all Originals : No two faces, no two minds, are just alike ; but all bear nature’s evident mark of separation on them. Born Originals, how comes it to pass that we die Copies ? -p19-20