Boedder—“Die Meistersinger von Numberg.” 
123 
so that one may now name the venerable old master as one of the 
chief figures of the epoch of the Reformation, so prolific in great 
minds and characters. 
(Page 411). As much as the lack of knowledge of human na¬ 
ture had impaired medieval court poetry, just as much did exces¬ 
sive association with men of a low class injure the middle class 
poets. As much as the lack of important domestic affairs had left 
the poetry of chivalry impoverished and lifeless, just as much did 
the momentous domestic events of the epoch of the Reformation 
blight contemporary poetry. The vortex of these events had un¬ 
balanced so many, the coarse tone of the progressive party of the 
period had marred the language and everything most needful to 
poetry. Hans Sachs’s life falls in the middle of this cultural 
period, is involved in the fortunate and unfortunate phases of the 
new doctrine, and his early youth coincides with the first move¬ 
ments. If like so many others he had let himself be carried along, 
it would not be cause for wonder, considering his zeal and his 
talent; if after winning his first applause he had joined in the 
general chorus, he might plead the example of such great men! 
What a deep nature does it indicate that this man could with such 
minute and penetrating versatility follow the aspects of his times 
and his nation, and fathom and depict, praise and blame them, 
without faltering in his sobermindedness, without sinking down 
from the height from which he viewed things. The entire range 
of contemporary life, the vast movement of his time are unfolded 
for us in the countless writings of the honest cobbler, animate and 
eloquent, but not passionate; vivid and penetrating, but without 
unrest, effortless and undesigning. He takes us into the plebeian 
crowds, but one sees at once that he is one of those finer natures 
who had forsworn the vulgar mob in the interest of social refine¬ 
ment. He shows to us the whole world in its whirling motion and 
haste, imperturbed himself from his quiet cell in which nothing 
escapes him, nothing leaves him indifferent, but also nothing robs 
him of his equanimity. He examines the empire’s manifold de¬ 
fects, but he does not wish to reform them. Only one sees that he 
is the inhabitant of a city which then enjoyed an enviable pros¬ 
perity of public and domestic finances, as well as of culture; whose 
good fortune has been lauded by every poet since Rosenblut’s time, 
described by every writer from Aeneas Sylvius on, whose constitu¬ 
tion was the envy of every enlightened person, which not only gave 
