Roedder—“Die Meistersinger von Nilrnberg 
125 
scribbling from mere force of habit. However, one may be chari¬ 
tably inclined even toward such artless versifying, where it is meant 
for an artless type of people, unpretentious and amusing, if only 
in its inner core it is entirely sound, serene, conciliating, and en¬ 
couraging. ... It is admirable to remain truly human in 
great events of public life with so much interest and wholehearted¬ 
ness; more admirable than his attempt to make a completely van¬ 
ished poetry to bloom afresh and produce new seed for further 
plantings. It was a time when so many unbidden meddled with 
things that did not concern them, when so many lost or misjudged 
their place in life. But how Hans Sachs, after the Muses had in 
his twentieth year called him to his poetic work, quickened him 
with their gifts, inspired him to praise virtue and to relieve sad¬ 
ness, and he, chained to his modest trade, had at first followed 
their call with less inclination, how from that time on, even when 
the loud applause of Germany was already honoring him, he kept 
to his limits in the same even temper, with modesty and self-knowl¬ 
edge, and (415) ever remained the artisan-poet and the poet-arti¬ 
san, how in his life he kept up the same tone that his poems evince, 
—all that is easier to observe than to comprehend. He might have 
argued with Hutten which one of them knew human nature bet¬ 
ter, watched conditions in Germany more keenly, felt more ardently 
for the fate of his fatherland and its culture and improvement, 
but yet his poems on the conditions of the times in comparison to 
Hutten’s form a perfect contrast of placidity to nervous agitation, 
of self-restraint to bold self-confidence, of moderation to portentous 
passion, and, so far as poetic treatment is concerned, of superior 
mastery of the subject to being mastered by the subject. . . . 
He did not suffer himself to be carried away by the coarse tone in 
the writings of his times; in the greatest passion and indignation 
he does not use invectives such as Luther and even the rulers of 
the period did; his style is vigorous and rich almost beside that 
of any other contemporary; it is innocent, animated, and lumi¬ 
nous beside Murner’s, much more poetic, plastic, impressive, and 
noble than Hutten’s; full of health and pure humor in compari¬ 
son to Fisehart’s, and next to Luther’s his language is by far the 
most remarkable of the century; it is a treasure-house for every 
future humorist and satirist. 
(Page 416). In the youthful products of his muse he con¬ 
centrates entirely on the question of chaste love, which usually 
