4 i 6 POPULAR SONGS. 



great many of these lyric songs, differed but little from the troubadours of 

 Southern France (Fig. 326), while the Meistersingers (master singers) had 

 more in common with the jugglers of the tongue of Oil. The work of the 

 Minnesingers did not reach, from the twelfth to the fourteenth century, 

 beyond the courts of the princes and the castles of the nobles, who them- 

 selves aspired to sing love-songs, and who waged unceasing war against the 

 ancient popular songs of Germany. The work of the Meistersingers, upon 

 the contrary, was intended for the middle and the lower classes (Fig. 327). 

 These poets and musicians, who devoted their efforts to a branch of literature 

 more in conformity with the German character, had quite eclipsed the 

 Minnesingers by the fifteenth century, and popularised a new branch of 

 poetry which contained within itself the germs of dramatic art. (See below, 

 chapter on National Poetry.) 



The popular songs of Germany are especially worth studying when they 

 take the eminently poetic form of ballads, for there is in the German ballad, 

 to use the felicitous expression of M. Fertiault, something soft and pensive, 

 which can be felt better than it can be described something at once vague 

 and touching. It embodies, as a rule, a slight drama, in which are united and 

 fused lyric, dramatic, and familiar elements. Pensive and mystic, it hints at 

 more than it actually says, and it exhales as it were a refined perfume of the 

 soul which kindles the deepest emotions. Germany, like France, has her 

 popular songs, both historical, religious, and domestic, and they are in a more 

 complete state of preservation. 



England, too, is rich in ancient ballads equal to those of Germany. The 

 English ballads are, as a rule, somewhat epic in their tendencies, and many of 

 them are of such a length that they assume the proportions of a poem in 

 several cantos. But, whatever may be their length or manner of composition, 

 they are replete with tender and refined sentiments culled from the marvellous 

 fables of ancient Britain. Scotland has also a number of national ballads 

 reflecting the poetic majesty of her wild scenery, of her mist-enveloped lakes, 

 and of her pine-covered mountains. Sir Walter Scott, in his "Songs of 

 the Scotch," remarks that traditional tales and songs, accompanied by the 

 flute and the harp of the minstrel, were probably the sole sources of amuse- 

 ment possessed by the Highlanders during their short intervals of peace. 

 In them we may trace the source whence Macpherson drew the fanciful 

 utterances which he puts in the mouth of his Ossian. Ireland is not less 



