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beautiful diminutives furnish the most obvious instance; and they were accordingly turned to excellent account by the poets, as in such lines as these:Elle estoyt blanche comme let,

Et doulce comme ung aignellet,
Vermeillette comme une rose.

Unfortunately, these, its most redeeming qualities, have gradually given way before the pretended refinements, that at length produced the "belle langue" which is the most unpoetic of European tongues.

SECTION IV.

GERMANY.-Songs of the ancient Teutonic tribes.-Reign of Charlemagne.Formation of the Teutonic languages.-Remains of the Carlovingian age.-Fragment of Hildibrant and Hathubrant.-The Church.-Louis le Debonnaire.-Otfried. Song of Victory of Louis III.-Legend of St. George. -St. Anno.-Popular songs.-Suabian dynasty.-Frederic Barbarossa. His connexion with the Berengars.-Henry VI. -Frederic II.-Conrad IV.-Conradin.-Decline of German poetry.-Cultivation of poetry at the minor courts, and in various dialects.-Low German.-Landgrave of Thuringia.-Romances of the Suabian age.-Nibelungen Lied.-Laurin.-Scandinavian mythology and poetry.-Harald the Valiant.-Lyric poetry of the Minnesingers.-Comparison with that of the Troubadours.

COTEMPORARY, or nearly so, with the most celebrated Troubadours flourished the Minnesingers of Germany. Their poetry was, till of late, almost unknown out of their native land; yet it is decidedly superior to that of their more fortunate rivals. It is the primary object of the present volume to introduce these early ornaments of a kindred tongue to the English reader; on which account he will perhaps excuse rather more particular details of their history.

Of all the branches of modern European poetry, it would be most ungracious to neglect that of the Teutonic nations; for to them may almost every where be traced the love and practice of song, even in

the days of what we are accustomed to call the deepest barbarism. It is hardly necessary to refer to the earliest observers of their manners, for the purpose of reminding the reader that the deeds of their warriors, as related in legendary songs, were always the delight of the ancient Germans. Time has laid its unsparing hand on much; yet some interesting and venerable reliques have survived; and there is little doubt that in the Nibelungen Lied, the Helden-buch, and the Scandinavian Eddas and Sagas, we see, though in a comparatively modern dress, fragments of a remote and almost primitive antiquity; such, perhaps, as Jornandes heard and referred to as historical materials at the court of Theoderic, who, like Alfred and Charlemagne, seems to have encouraged the ancient vernacular literature of his country.

The reigns of Charlemagne and his successors in the Carlovingian dynasty, exhibit the first glimpses of distinct light thrown upon that portion of the ancient poetry of Germany which has survived to us. Though merciless and cruel in his views of territorial aggrandizement, Charlemagne had the discernment to see that the most politic plan for giving stability to his authority consisted in amending the religion and enlightening the understandings of the tribes over whom he triumphed in arms. Though his literary tastes were acquired in Italy, he had judgement enough to postpone the popular learning of the day

to the better object of bringing forward the indigenous literature of the countries which formed the immediate seat of his empire. With something of a prophetic perception of their future value, he sought to preserve even the "barbara et antiquissima carmina" of his native land, and to fix its grammar and language, rather than introduce either the favourite Latin, or the Romance dialect which had sprung from it and was spoken in the Gaulish provinces of his empire. Thus stability began to be given to the German tongue; and from that era we may date a gradual but steady progress towards maturity.

The two great original divisions of the Teutonic languages are:-first, the Low-German, which comprehends the dialects of the more northern tribes, such as the Anglo-Saxon, the old Friesic, the more modern Nether-Saxon, and the Belgic or Dutch :-second, the High-German, which prevailed in the south-west, and comprehends the Francic, Alemanic, Burgundian, Suabian, and other kindred dialects. These leading divisions are often very indistinctly marked in the most ancient specimens, probably from the multiplicity and confusion of provincial dialects; but as soon as the languages became fixed, or had been in any way devoted to literary purposes, the distinction became broad and obvious between the High-German or Suabian, in which the greater part of the poetry of the Minnesingers is written, and the Nether-Ger

man, which in many respects (especially to English readers, from its affinity to the common parent the old Friesic or Saxon,) forms a more pleasing and certainly a smoother tongue, and one which we should perhaps have been inclined, a priori, to prefer to the one which in fact became the literary language of Germany. This was the Upper-Saxon dialect, which seems to have been cultivated during the reigns of the Saxon emperors, and which, in consequence mainly of its adoption by Luther at the era of the Reformation, obtained, and has ever since preserved, the ascendancy.

The language of the court and army of Charlemagne and his immediate successors was the Francic, or that branch of the High-German which had most assimilation to the lower dialects. However pure might have been the language of Clodwig [Clovis], the necessity or expediency which Charlemagne found for forming a new version of the Salic law, shows that great alterations had taken place in the popular tongue. The constant intercourse, under the Carlovingian monarchs, with the more Northern tribes, seems very much to have inclined the bias towards their dialect; and accordingly some of the earliest reliques of that age have a great portion of Low-German words. This is particularly the case with the fragment of Hildibrant and Hathubrant, which will be mentioned hereafter. From the 9th century, the modern High

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