"

singers, however, worked according to very definite laws. In each school these laws were carefully written down; although there was rarely formal connection between the Mastersingers of different cities, the rules in each case varied but little; the singers went from city to city, engaging in contests without suffering embarrassment. The collection of laws was called the "Tabulatur." Three "Merker," or umpires, were presidents in each school, who at festivals sat upon a stage, with a Bible close at hand. The churches were the most frequent places of assembling; sometimes the festival took place in the town hall, sometimes in the open air. In Wagner's opera of the Mastersingers," in which the old life is closely reproduced, the Mastersingers are represented as marching in procession into the church of Saint Katherine, in Nuremberg, where a contest takes place in which the victor is to receive the hand of the beautiful daughter of a goldsmith. Again, a festival takes place in a broad meadow in the outskirts of the city, the minstrels and the trade-guilds entering to a glorious march. The shoemakers sing a song in honor of Saint Crispin, who stole leather from the rich to make shoes for the poor; the tailors celebrate a hero of their trade who, during a siege, sewing himself up in goat-skins, performed such antics on the city walls that the frightened enemy withdrew. At length the handsome hero of the piece sings his way to victory, and maid and lover are happily united.

The Mastersingers cared little or nothing for the inner import of their songs, giving an absurd attention to the outward form. In the schools there were various grades, as in freemasonry. Those who were successful had the privilege of decking themselves magnificently in the paraphernalia of the order. A silver chain, with a badge representing King David, adorned the neck; wreaths of silk were placed upon the head. In the richer cities the decorations were splendid, and to have gained them was the greatest of honors,—not alone to the individual, but to his family and guild; the officials of the order nodded approval, and the throng of burghers and their wives present gave the heartiest applause. Some of the names of favorite airs that have come down to us are very fantastic:1 "The Striped-saffron Flower-tune of Hans Findeisen," "The English Tin-tune of Caspar Enderles," "The Blood-gleaming Wire-tune of Jobst Zolner," "The Many-colored Coat-tune of F. Fromer." The taste is grotesque enough, yet it possessed the world wonderfully. The shoemaker would leave his awl and waxed-end, the tailor hang up his shears, the blacksmith forsake hammer and anvil,-all listening to, or taking part in, the curious stupidity. Developing in obscure ways, the mastersinging was at the height of its popularity in the century of the Reformation; from that time it declined, lingering,

1 Die gestreift-Safran-Blümleinweis Hans Findeisens, die Englische-Zinnweis Kaspars Enderles, die blut-glänzende Drathweis Jobst Zolners, die Vielfarb-Rockweis F. Fromers.

however, into our own age. As late as 1770 a festival was held at Nuremberg; at Ulm, as late as 1838, four old masters were still living. These resigned, in that year, their tabulatur and paraphernalia to the Lieder-Kranz, and announced that the long succession of Mastersingers had come to an end.

The Mastersingers did much good, though not in ways that they intended. It is to be noticed that precisely those cities in which they most flourished were the cities which most zealously accepted the Reformation. We may be sure it was not a chance coincidence. The mastersinging indicated a certain intellectual activity. The Bible, moreover, was always close by the umpires when they were discharging their office; every member of a mastersinging guild must have a reputation for honesty and piety, and to this was due in part the superior morality which distinguished the citizen from the noble. The number of names of individuals is very small which even the elaborate accounts have thought it worth while to preserve from among the crowd of Mastersingers. Of these I need to consider only one, and that one rather for what he did outside of mastersinging than for the work in which he conformed to the Tabulatur. He seems indeed to have felt himself its triviality, and based his title to fame on other foundations.

Of the cities honorably prominent, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, as seats of blooming trade, and strong and brilliant life of every kind, no one equals Nuremberg. It stood, full of thrift and cul

ture, with an admirable constitution. It produced and retained within its bounds many men of great energy and genius, and knew also how to attract ability from abroad,—an art which republics have seldom understood. It was great in commerce and manufactures, in inventions, science, and art. It was the centre and high-school of the mastersong,for more than one hundred years the main cradle of the German drama. It included within its walls such numbers of distinguished men that not only could no German city compare with it, but many countries of large extent were surpassed, and the great Italian cities were only doubtfully superior.1

Hans Sachs was born in 1494, the son of a tailor in Nuremberg. From his seventh to his fifteenth year he was a pupil in a Latin school; at seventeen, as an apprentice, he began his wandering, visiting with interest the mastersinging festivals wherever they occurred, and writing at Munich his first poems. As life went forward he developed into a thrifty citizen, becoming the father of seven children, all of whom he survived. With all his business activity, he studied diligently, and, with astonishing fecundity, wrote six thousand and forty-eight separate pieces, forming thirty-four solid folio volumes of manuscript.2 His authority in his time was very great, and used without fear or favor in behalf of the Reformation, which was in full progress as he came forward into manhood. He had great knowl

1 Gervinus.

2 Koberstein.

edge of the world, and was familiar, besides, with all the literature of his time, so far as it had been intrusted to books. He was well read in history and mythology, knew the Teutonic and Celtic legends, and frequently refers to the Italian writers, who, just before, had made their country famous. His poems are upon all possible subjects, and of the most various kinds,-the drama, the lyric, the satire, receiving from him especial favor. His best works are those in which he represents the burgher life, in the midst of which he lived. His mastersongs are no better than those of his contemporaries, a worthlessness of which he seems himself to have been conscious, for although they comprised by far the larger number of the pieces that he wrote, from the collection of his poems which he himself prepared they were excluded. His earnest pieces have less interest than those of a whimsical, comical character.

Hans Sachs gradually sank in the estimation of the world until he was held in utter contempt. Göthe and Wieland, however, brought him again into favor, and he is now highly esteemed as one of the bravest and worthiest of the figures that stood by the side of Luther. He leads us into the midst of soldiers, peasants, tradesmen, knights, gypsies, priests, and scholars; he points out their follies; we hear his voice, meanwhile, admonishing them to temperance and morality. Although reproving, he has a hearty enjoyment of life, takes the world's merry tricks in good part, and when the crowd is at cross-purposes, with cheerfulness and prudence tries