The metaphorical language of the Minnesingers is often spirited; thus Henry of Morunge sings Where now is gone my morning star? And again the same author Mine is the fortune of a simple child And love and rapture yield to dark despair. In the construction of their verses, the Germans seem entitled to the merit of great originality. Had they borrowed servilely from the Troubadours, no features of their poetry would have been so certain of transmission as the measure and the music; yet the German system of versification is almost universally different, and must have required tunes as various. The Iambus is the only foot of the Troubadours; the Minnesingers have almost as many as the classical writers. The following song by Conrad of Wurtzburg is translated into a measure which will give an idea of the intricate style of some of the Minne-lieds: See how from the meadows pass Brilliant flowers and verdant grass; All their hues now they lose: o'er them hung Late with leafy honours drest: Now their sallow branches fail: Now in woe, mournful, low, is her song. Nor for lily nor rose sighs he, He to whom winter's gloom brings delight. He forgets the alter'd year; Sweetly glide at eventide the moments bright. For his lady's love he deems Not possessing that best blessing-love's delight. The dactylic measure used by some of these songsters (particularly by Ulrich of Lichtenstein), was peculiarly adapted to their hymns of joy. Its harmony, and the degree of perfection to which it was carried, would be hardly credited, if we had not before us the originals, free from any sort of doubt as to their authenticity, Bouterwek observes, that modern Germany cannot perhaps show a more perfect speci men of this sort of versification than the following, with the exception perhaps of the last line. Was klagest du, tumber, Vil seligen kumber, Den ich durch Got dir geraten han; Das du der guoten Der reine gemuoten Werest mit truwen vil untertan? Tuot dir den tot Vil suesse not, So senfte swere, So lieblich twanc We, zwifelere! So bist du vil krank. That the songs were sung, and accompanied by musical instruments and by dancing, is plain, from the repeated allusions to both. The song frequently concludes with the excuse that "the string is broken," Nu ist der seite enzwei. One example may suffice of the metre of some of these dance or chorus songs, in which lightness and good humour seem to have been more consulted than any higher sort of poetic excellence : Mit vil schonen blümen lit; Vröide git, Davon suln wir sin gemeit..... Suln wir diesen sumer han: Susse stimme, manigvalde; Des suln wir in froiden sin..... Nu singen Nu singen! Dannoch harte erspringen Den reigen, Den reigen, Pfaffen und leigen! &c. We seem to hear the string of the 'geige' itself twang to the rythm of such lines as occur a little further on: Verrirret, Ist der seite erkirret : Nu hören! Nu hören! Er wil uns ertören. &c. The Troubadours, on the other hand, generally move in a measured, sedate, and plaintive tone. In comparing the Minnesingers with these their rivals, it may also be worthy of remark that the artificial classifications of the French minstrels are with the former almost entirely wanting. They have, as was before observed, scarcely any tensons, and no wearisome distinctions of planhs, sixtines, descorts, refrains, bref-doubles, &c. The envoi too, an almost invariable conclusion of a chanson, is wholly wanting. The subject in fact, not the form, characterizes the German song; and every poet gives vent to his joys or his sorrows in such strains as may be most accordant to his feelings, unshackled by such laws as were imposed in the decay of the art, when the 'meisters' or 'masters,' as we shall see hereafter, began to make a trade of the muse. It may, perhaps, be asked, why no notice is taken in these observations of early English poetry. To this it may be answered;-first, that to do so, we must enter upon a field in which, in order to proceed satisfactorily, more would be required than the present limits would allow :-secondly, that several works are open to every English reader which enter fully into the early poetic history of his country, though perhaps not so fully as might be due to the purely English or Saxon source of our literature, and the gradual formation of our genuine language as distinguished from its French adulterations :—and thirdly, that the greater part of the poetry which appeared in England cotemporaneously with the period under consideration, belongs to the Anglo-Norman school already noticed. The |