It is not my purpose to go into the causes of changes in tastes, traditions, ideas, movements. That subject has been dealt with often. Economic reasons are great factors in developing new literary periods and movements, yet also have much to do with this feeling of reaction against a preceding age. The artificiality of the eighteenth century gave way to the love of nature of the nineteenth. The demand for reason, wit and classicism in literature disappeared gradually, to be replaced by imagination, the utilisation of emotion and romanticism. Wordsworth is a reaction to Pope (even though Wordsworth's nature worship concealed his sex interest). His way was prepared by other writers of nature like Thomson, Collins, Goldsmith, Gray, Cowper, Crabbe, Blake and Burns. The immortality and exhibitionism of Congreve, Wycherly, Farquar, Van Brugh and Dryden in the Restoration period were a reaction to the Puritanism of the age of Cromwell. Bunyan, because of his early training and physical and mental condition, however, still clung to his early puritanism. Yet Pope and Wordsworth were each men of their ages and wrote in accordance with the rising literary traditions of the time, though they also altered these. For the imitative instinct is powerful and present in the most original writers. Shakespeare's plays are much like those of Marlowe and Fletcher, though greater. His "plagiarisms," like those of Milton, were extensive. It is true that often one man sets the standard for a literary age, but he usually has predecessors. His influence is due to the fact that he strikes responsive chords in the unconscious of many people of his time, and the circle of his admirers and imitators increases, so as to make him an authority. The realistic novels of George Eliot appeared after England wearied of the fanciful fictions of Walter Scott. A generation passed by before the reaction set in with full force. Both writers wrote as they did, largely in obedience to the tendencies of their times, upon which they reacted and were reacted upon. They wrote because of personal repressions. Their methods of expression were different, because of a desire to comply somewhat with literary traditions. Romanticism was fashionable in 1830, while realism was in the air in 1860. Those readers who think that these views do not give sufficient credit to writers for originality in literary expression should remember that common literary forms are followed by writers who may nevertheless be original in ideas. Only the student of literary history realises the power of literary imitation. Take the thousands of pastorals that flooded European literature from Theocrities to Pope; most of them, except Spenser's _Astrophel_, Milton's _Lycidas_, and a few others were flat and unprofitable. Note the numerous sonnets written since the form was brought over from Italy by Wyatt and Surrey. The extensive use of the sonnet proves poets are imitative.