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 And there is a certain assault upon 'Bone and Skin, two millers thin,' which—though the real names of the millers and the circumstances which induced the declaration that flesh and blood could not bear them have long vanished out of all but antiquarian memories—have somehow continued to go on jingling in men's ears ever since 17th December 1728. I have said enough to suggest more than one problem. What is the salt which has kept these fragments of rhyme so long alive? Is it due to the sound or the sense? Survival for a century has been given as the test which entitles a man to be called a classic. Does the survival of these little impromptus entitle Byrom to be a classic? May we call them jewels five lines long, that are to sparkle for ever on the stretched forefinger of all time? That seems to be too lofty a claim. The thought is not by itself very subtle or very keen. And yet when we think how few are the writers who can blow even the frailest of word-bubbles which shall go floating down five or six generations, we must admit the fact to be remarkable. What is the quality which it indicates in the author? And here I might affect to take up the psychological method: show what are the peculiarities necessarily implied by success in