chapter twenty-eight of the same book. Then follow songs dealing with

the Gospels and Epistles. The Book of Job is not forgotten. Finally, there are a number of secular poems, many recounting Æsop's fables and anecdotes drawn from old writers. Songs of this character were composed by the master-singers for diversion at their informal gatherings. At the meetings in the Church of St. Catherine only sacred subjects were allowed. It is for this reason that Wagner's Kothner asks Walther in the opera whether he had chosen sacred matter (_ein heil'gen Stoff_) for his trial song, which provokes the reply from the ardent young knight that he would sing of love, a subject sacred to him. Whether sacred or secular, however, the form and style of the songs are alike. Nothing could more completely illustrate the absurdity of the fundamental theory of the foolish old pedants that poetry might be written by rule of thumb than the publication of a few of the songs in this old book. The nature of the poetical frenzy which fills them can, perhaps, be guessed if I record the fact that the majority of them, I think, begin with a citation of chapter and verse, or some statement equally matter of fact, as thus:

"The twenty-ninth chapter of Genesis records," or "Diogenes, the wise master," or "Strabo writes of the customs," or "Moses, the eleventh, reports," or "The Lesser Book of Truth doth tell," etc.

The last of these lines is the beginning of a master-song which has a twofold interest. In the first place, it is a secular poem by Hans Sachs which, to the best of my knowledge, has never been printed or written about. In the second place, it is set to a melody by the veritable Pogner who, in Wagner's comedy, offers his daughter and his fortune to the winner in the singing contest which makes up Wagner's last act. The poem is so amusing that I would like to give it entire in English, but its irregularity of accent and peculiarities of rhyme do not lend themselves willingly to translation. Of musical accent the master-singers, who followed the rhyming rules of those marvellously ingenious rhymesters the _Minnesinger_, had not the slightest idea. Wagner knew that. Sachs' first critical tap on his lapstone in Beckmesser's serenade is evoked by a blunder in accent which the veritable Sachs would have passed unnoticed, though, being a real poet, his sins in this respect were not as numerous as those of his colleagues and predecessors. I content myself, therefore, with the first _Stollen_, or stanza, and its _Abgesang_, or burden, which the curious student will find to be composed in strict accordance with the rules which, in the opera, Kothner reads from the blackboard. These _Leges Tabulaturæ_, by-the-way, are almost a literal transcription from the original laws preserved in Wagenseil's book. The matter of the song is this: A boor falls ill. Finding that his appetite is wholly gone, he calls in a physician, who informs him (in a drastic fashion) that the trouble is caused by an accumulation of slime in the stomach. He administers a purgative, but without result. The sickness increases, and the boor upbraids the doctor, who retorts that his patient will be a dead man within an hour unless he consent to having his stomach taken out and scoured with chalk. The boor consents, the physician performs the operation, cutting the man open with a pair of shears, brushes out the offending organ with a wisp, and hangs it on the fence to dry. What the farmer does meanwhile is not recorded; but before the physician could replace his stomach a raven carried it off to the woods and ate it. In this dilemma the physician disclosed himself as a worthy progenitor of the modern race of surgeons. He was terribly frightened, but didn't let any one see it. By stealth he procured a sow's stomach, introduced it into the farmer's body, and quickly sewed up the aperture. The farmer got well, and paid eight florins for the job. But heavens, what an appetite was that which he developed! To satisfy him now was utterly impossible, for which reason, concludes the moralist, an insatiable eater is nowadays said to be a hog (literally "to have a sow's stomach"), who devours more than he produces, as many women lament:

"Darum spricht man noch von ein Man, Den man gar nicht erfuellen kan, Wie er hab einen Sawmagen; Verthut mehr denn er gewinnen kan, Hoert man vil Frawen klagen."

FIRST _STOLLEN_. [Illustration: score]

The Less - er Book of Truth doth tell, How ill - ness on a boor once fell, Taste for all food de - stroy - ing; A - gainst all drugs it did re - bel, His pleas - ures all al - loy - ing.......

One day there came a doc - tor wise, Who glanced him o'er with search - ing eyes, Found out what caused his ail - ing. His learn - ing proof a - gainst sur - prise, Made work like that plain sail - ing.......

THE _ABGESANG_. [Illustration: score]

"Far - mer, of all your pains... the cause, Is slime with - in your stom - ach wide dis - tend - ing."

The far - mer heard with gap - - ing jaws, For gnaw - ing pains in - side his paunch were rend - ing.

The tale is an old one, popular in one form or another in the Middle Ages. A variant of it is to be found in the _Gesta Romanorum_, to which extraordinary collection of moral tales it is possible that Sachs had reference when he spoke of the _Buch der Kleinen Wahrheit_, or Lesser Book of Truth, as I have rendered it. In the _Gesta_, however, the physician substitutes a goat's eye, and subjects his patient to an extraordinary strabismus. Hans Sachs's variation is eminently characteristic of the man and the people for whom he wrote.