Because of the superabundance of producers in every department of art and literature, and because the actual needs of the world are small in proportion to the total output, a sifting results whereby is preserved only that most typical of its kind. Thus of a thousand melodies popular in their hour, one is added to a people's treasury of song. A stirring, national anthem, or a perfect poem of tender feeling or contagious flame, may alone preserve the memory of a prolific author. Much of what the world once deemed great in art, as in all else, has gone to the limbo of little things. Of the surprising bulk of poems which Byron at thirty-six left behind him, most of the «Childe Harold,» displaying the range and fire of his yet undimmed imagination, and the freshness and amplitude of his characteristic, eloquent description, will live; but «Lara» and «Cain» and such must mingle with the trodden dust. So in the domain of music; many old-time authors of supposed masterpieces are superceded by others of like calibre and claim. Only of him who in his department creates a new type, or perfects an old one, can anything approaching longevity be predicted. To but one popular poet was it given to interpret in a hundred lyrics the heart of his peasant Scotland. To but one English dramatist to create for our sympathy Lear, Cordelia, Othello and Desdemona, and to evoke from his fecund brain the philosophical musings of Hamlet, the whimsical humor of Falstaff, the gossamer beauties of «Midsummer Night's Dream,» and the terrible realism of Macbeth and Richard. To but one epic poet was it given to breathe a quickening breath into the pale shades of those mighty dead, Hector, Agamemnon, Achilles, and many an otherwise forgotten hero. To but one musician was it given to perfect in «The Well-tempered Clavichord» the great organ Fugue, to but one master of his art to show the attainable in those purely classical forms, the Symphony and the Sonata. But what in a summary are the features of Chopin warranting his present vogue, and assuring his future fame? They are many, and each is an unimpeachable witness to his worth.