to music.

Mastersingers were always lyrical, and actually sung The entire poem was called a 'bar;' and it was divided generally into three, but sometimes into five or more stanzas, or 'gesetze :' and each 'satz' also fell into three portions; the first of which was a 'stole,' the second an 'abgesang,' and the third a 'stole,' like the first. The rimes were classed into 'stumpfe-reime' and 'klingende-reime;' and 'stumpfe-schlage-reime' and 'klingende - schlagereime' and other denominations were employed, which we shall spare ourselves the trouble of transcribing. The poets, singers and merkers counted the syllables on their fingers; and if there was a proper number of syllables in the line, it was of no consequence whether they were long or short. The length of the verse, the number of lines, and the order of the rimes in each 'stole' and 'abgesang,' was variable, and consequently their poems were susceptible of a great variety of forms, which were called tunes or weise.' The invention of a new 'weise' was considered as the test of a Mastersinger's abilities. There were some hundreds of these 'weise,' all named after their inventors; as, Hans Tindeisen's rosemary weise; Joseph Schmierer's floweryparadise weise; Hans Fogel's fresh weise; and Henry Frauenlob's yellow weise, and his blue weise, and his frog weise, and his looking-glass weise. The code of criticism to which the Master

singers were subjected, was contained in the rules of 'Tabulatur' of the societies; and it certainly was unreasonably severe. They were actually prohibited from employing 'sentences which nobody could understand,' or 'words wherein no meaning could be discovered;' which unfeeling interdictions are found in the 4th and 5th articles of the Nuremberg Tabulatur.

"The Mastersingers amused themselves by ascribing an extravagant antiquity to their institutions, although their statutes and regulations do not appear to have been completely established till the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. Master Cyril Sprangenburg, indeed, deduced their history from the Celtic bards in the time of Abraham;' and this elaborate disquisition gave such satisfaction to the society, that it was transcribed in vellum, and 'bound with gold bosses, clasps and corners,' and preserved amongst their archives with as much veneration as the Florentine copy of the Pandects. The charter of incorporation of the Twelve Wise Masters,' was said to have been granted by the Emperor Otto and Pope Leo the Fourth. To show the absurdity of the fable, it will be sufficient to observe, that Conrad of Würtzburg, and Frauenlob, and others of yet later date, are said to have been cited by that emperor, in the year 962, to appear before him at Pavia, where, as Adam Puschman gravely records, they sung before the

professors of the University, and were declared to be the masters and founders of the art.

"The city of Nuremberg was the Athens of these incorporated poets. To the credit of Hans Foltz, the barber and Mastersinger, who shaved there in the middle of the 15th century, it must be told, that he took great interest in promoting the then newly discovered art of printing; and even set up a private press at his own house. But none of the Mastersingers can vie with the industrious Hans Sachs the shoemaker. Hans was born at Nuremberg in the year 1494; and his father, an honest tailor, placed him, at an early age, in the free-school of the town, where, as he mentions in one of his poems, 'he was indifferently taught, according to the bad system which was followed in those days.' However, he 'picked up a few scraps of Greek and Latin.' In his fifteenth year he learnt shoemaking; and about the same time, one Nunnenbeck, a weaver and Mastersinger, instructed him in the rudiments of the 'meister gesang.' According to an old German custom, it was usual for young workmen to travel round the country for some years before they settled in their trade. Hans confesses, that his conduct during his rambles was not altogether exemplary, but he lost no opportunity of improving himself in the 'praiseworthy art; and in his twentieth year he composed his first 'bar,' a godly song, to the tune of 'Long Marner;'

and was admitted to share in the honours to which he had so long aspired. Hans was partial to narrative poetry; but he gained most renown by his plays and farces, some of which extend to seven acts, and which afforded wonderful amusement to the patient Nuremberghers. In the seventy-seventh year of his age, he took an inventory of his poetical stock in trade, and found, according to his narrative, that his works 'filled thirty folio volumes, all written with his own hand,' and consisted of four thousand two hundred mastership songs; two hundred and eight comedies, tragedies and farces; one thousand seven hundred fables, tales and miscellaneous poems; and seventy-three devotional, military, and love songs; making a sum total of six thousand and forty-eight pieces, great and small.' Out of these he culled as many as filled three massy folios, which were published in the years 1558-61. And another edition being called for, Hans could not resist the temptation of increasing it from his manuscripts. During the whole of his life he continued to work at his trade, although he found leisure enough to spin out a greater mass of rime than was ever produced by one man, if Lope de Vega be excepted. Hans had the satisfaction to find that his collected works' were received as a welcome gift by the public; and in the year 1576 he died, full of years and honour. The fame of this indefatigable writer has lately revived in

Germany; and reprints have been made of his works, or at least of a part of them. The humour of his fabliaux, or 'schwänke,' certainly is not contemptible. He laughs lustily, and makes his reader join him: his manner, as far as verse can be compared to prose, is not unlike that of Rabelais, but less grotesque."

Opitz, in the commencement of the 17th century, first opened the modern school of German poetry. Till then, and even for some time after, formal pedantic dullness was everywhere triumphant, except in the humble but truly poetic feelings of the simple ballads and popular songs. Of these, traditionary attachment has preserved many, without sending down with them the names of their authors, who probably never sought nor were conscious of deserving posthumous honours, though the preservation and transmission of their works are evidence of the concurrent opinion of succeeding generations in favour of their claim to popular regard.

The German ballads in particular are second to those of no country in Europe: they do not come within our limits, but it may not be uninteresting to wind up our task with specimens of a few of the little lyric pieces which, though preserved without date or name, are not unworthy of the best spirit of the Suabian age.

The first is from Eschenburg's Denkmäler, p. 456.