THE MASTERSINGERS. Nu ist der seite enzwei. ante, p. 134. D'autra guiza e d'autra razo ARNAUD DANiel. THE MASTERSINGERS. Decline of German poetry from the beginning of the 14th century. The Mastersingers.-Sing-schools.-The last of the Minnesingers. Der Chanzler. Regenbog. - Frauenlob, and his funeral.-The battle of Wartburg.-System and peculiarities of the Mastersingers.-Hans Sachs.—Anonymous ballads and popular songs.-Specimens of the latter. THE accession of the house of Hapsburg has already been pointed out as the æra of the decline of German poetry. No branch of European vernacular literature gave so rich a promise,-none seemed more capable of being matured into finished excellence; yet no hopes were so speedily and completely blasted. The causes of the degradation of the German muse to such an extent are not easily discovered. Why, it has often been asked, did it take so unfavourable a turn, as compared with that of other counmany tries? why did so much beauty and harmony of language, so much tenderness and comparative refinement of taste and feeling, fail in producing their legitimate effects? and why did they quietly give place to a cold, artificial, handicraft system of riming by line, square, and compass? Princes and nobles had, it is true, ceased to sing; and humbler |