The other order of artists have to be shown the way.

They have little fertility in construction or invention.

You have to say to them "Here is something that you could do too; go and do it better," or "Here is a story to work on, or a refrain of a song; take it and give it your subtlety, your music." The villainy you teach them they will use and it will go hard with them if they do not better the invention; but they do not invent for themselves.

To this order of artists Burns like Shakespeare, and among the lesser men Tennyson, belongs.

In all his plays Shakespeare is known to have invented only one plot; in many he is using not only the structure but in many places the words devised by an older author; his mode of treatment depends on the conventions common in his day, on the tragedy of blood, and madness and revenge, on the comedy of intrigue and disguises, on the romance with its strange happenings and its reuniting of long parted friends.