He made hardly anything new.
[Footnote 5: W.E.Henley, "Essay on Burns." Works, David Nutt.] Stevenson in his essay on Burns remarks his readiness to use up the work of others or take a large hint from it "as if he had some difficulty in commencing." He omits to observe that the very same trait applies to other great artists.

There seem to be two orders of creative writers.

On the one hand are the innovators, the new men like Blake, Wordsworth, Byron and Shelley, and later Browning.

These men owe little to their predecessors; they work on their own devices and construct their medium afresh for themselves.

Commonly their fame and acceptance is slow, for they speak in an unfamiliar tongue and they have to educate a generation to understand their work.