[15]
For even great authors have
their blemishes, for which they have been censured
by competent critics and have even reproached each
other. I only wish that imitators were more likely
to improve on the good things than to exaggerate
the blemishes of the authors whom they seek to
copy. And even those who have sufficient critical
acumen to avoid the faults of their models will not
find it sufficient to produce a copy of their merits,
amounting to no more than a superficial resemblance,
or rather recalling those sloughs which, according to
Epicurus, are continually given off by material things.1
1 Epicurus held that all sense-perception was caused by the impact of such atomic sloughs: cp. Lucret. iv. 42 sqq.
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