The question of his alleged plagiarisms has been already, to some extent, dealt with. It has been shown, that is to say, that in the way of absolute stealing the charge has not the slightest probability. The strongest argument of all is, indeed, that when we see what he did with originals which we possess, such as _Guzman d'Alfarache_ and the _Diablo Cojuelo_, there could be no motive for discreditable appropriation in other cases. But, when the charge in its offensive sense has been laid aside, it remains to consider the use which he did make of _publica materies_. There can be no doubt that, as was the case with Shakspeare and Molière and many other men of the very greatest genius, he made wholesale and indiscriminate use thereof. There is proof of this in many cases; there is probability of it in many more. Indeed, there is in this and other instances almost ground for the paradox that it is only men of little creative power who are scrupulously original. Many very small poets, by luck or by care, have kept free from the charge of indebtedness to anybody, while Shakspeare calmly versifies whole pages of North's "Plutarch;" while Molière compels restitution of his goods from the unlucky people who happened to possess them first without the least scruple; while Milton lays Dutch dramatists and French epic poets and Italian opera librettists under contribution as coolly as if they had been Royalist squires. In Lesage's case there is, however, something more than this. In the three great cases just mentioned, and in many others, it is only now and then that the borrowers condescend to borrow; it is a passing freak, or, to speak more respectfully and with more critical truth, an occasional conviction that here are the tools of which they themselves can make the best use. But there are some men, and those not among the least in literature, who, from a certain idiosyncrasy, which may, perhaps, be termed an indolence of brain, have seemed to prefer always, when it was possible, to work on beaten tracks and to take their start from some already-accomplished work. The most remarkable example of this variety of talent in English literature is Dryden; the most remarkable in French literature is beyond all question Lesage. Yet Lesage must in respect of absolute originality be ranked below Dryden, because his greatest work, though its substance may be independent enough, springs in point of general design directly from Spanish originals, while the greatest work of Dryden, his satiric and didactic pieces, was not directly suggested by anything precedent. It may be said, indeed, that, of the four productions which we have singled out as exhibiting Lesage at his best, the two dramas are far more original than the two novels. Whether Lesage, had he been more favoured by the exponents of the regular drama and had he devoted himself longer thereto, would have produced something even more original than _Crispin_ and