90 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
which is now offered to him. Sachs then begins to sing the praise 
of the mastersingers’ guild half ironically, half seriously, dwelling 
on its good features and the excellent things that have been pre¬ 
served and fostered by it. Thereby he assuages the mastersingers 
themselves and wins them over. He closes with the words: 
‘E’en should the Holy Roman Empire perish, 
We’d still have holy German art to cherish.’ ” 
Fully sixteen years after the completion of the Marienbad draft, 
on October 3,0, 1861, Wagner wrote to his publisher Franz Schott 
informing him that he expected to resume an old plan for a comic 
opera: 
“The opera is entitled Die Meistersinger von Numb erg, and the 
poetical and jovial chief hero is Hans Sachs. The subject matter 
has in it very much that is genial and droll, and I am pleased to 
think that I have hit upon something unexpected and ingenious 
in this plan, which is entirely of my own invention.’’ 
And on November 20, he added: 
“When I surveyed this year, which was in every respect lost 
to me, I asked myself, what am I to do? All of a sudden my 
whimsical Mastersingers rose up before me, and at one blow I felt 
myself again master of my fate. Evidently my good star had 
formerly suggested to me this unique and even jolly subject, in 
order to help me with it at the most critical moment. ” 
From these remarks it is manifest that Wagner, at least at the 
time of the execution of his plan, regarded the subject as entirely 
his own. Neither do we have any statement from him at the time 
of its inception which would contradict his later assertion. And 
so Professor Golther seems fully justified in saying: 8 
‘ ‘ So far as the Meistersinger is concerned, we can hardly speak 
of sources, so irrelevant and insignificant are the few external 
traits that emanate from literary sources. Werner and Welti 
have collected the few pertinent data in Kursehners Wagnerjahr- 
buch, 1886. 9 As the historical coloring of the tenth century was 
employed in Lohengrin in a novel and independent manner, so 
Wagner introduced in the Meistersinger the cultural background 
8 Richard Wagners dramatische Dichtungen im Verhaltnis zu ihren Quellen. 
Biihne und Welt, I, 2 (1898-99), p, 579. 
0 This book was not at my disposal. 
