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beauty which testifies to both the æsthetic and moral vigor of the people's youth. Frederick I of Germany could have found no surer way to the popular heart, especially of succeeding ages, than by his love and cultivation of his native tongue, which enforced the use of the German of the twelfth century "for all court and state purposes," and encouraged the rising attempts of German song. "The ruins of his palace at Gelnhaussen," says a writer upon the Minnesingers, "are said still to carry with them the traditional attachment of the neighborhood; and even in the dark recesses of the Hartz forest, the legend places him in a subterranean palace in the caverns of the Kyffaus mountain, his beard flowing on the ground, and himself reposing in a trance upon his marble throne, awakening only at intervals to reward any votary of song who seeks his lonely court." (Taylor, "Lays of the Minnesingers," p. 99.) Songs of warlike deeds were always the delight of the ancient Germans; and when Ludwig the Pious tried to banish the songs recounting the legends of barbarous and heathen lore, the love of song, it was found, could not be subdued; and it was found necessary to supply the people with metrical versions of the New Testament and of Scripture stories, in order to wean them from their old heroic ballads.

The two lands which surpass all others for beauty, richness, and variety of popular songs, are Germany and Scotland. The romantic lyre of Provence bequeathed little or nothing. France and Spain have each a highly characteristic music, but small in quantity and inferior in depth. The Irish music has many charms investing an unmistakable individuality. Nowhere, in the ancient days, were bards and poets held in high

er honor than among the Irish. Their profession was a hereditary privilege, allowed only to members of illustrious families; and many of their ballads, which were devoted chiefly to the memory of national achievements, still remain sources of the materials of Irish history. But the legend of St. Patrick, according to which he destroyed three hundred volumes of ancient Irish songs in his zealous determination to root out all antique superstitions inconsistent with Christianity, at once reveals the former national fecundity in song, and reminds us of the present comparative paucity of Irish folk-music. Ireland's melodies are not very many in number, and, though characteristic and often very pleasing, seldom or never reveal much depth of mental or moral experience. England has an unequalled store of ballads, which are most delicious poetry and by far the noblest specimens of heroic lyrics that any tongue possesses; but the melodies to which minstrels sung them have died out of the popular memory and usage; nor have they been succeeded, speaking generally, by any other folk-songs of musical value. An exception is the well-known beautiful air of Ben Jonson's song, "Drink to Me only with Thine Eyes"-the many efforts to discover the composer of which have been unsuccessful, although it dates only from the last century. England, however, whatever may be its popular musical status now, has had its thriving time of folk-songs and of general musical culture. A song which has descended from about the middle of the thirteenth century presents the first example of secular music in parts (it was elaborately harmonized in six parts) which has been found in any country. The following is the melody, with the words modernized:

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bloweth mead, And springeth wood anew, Sing cuckoo! Ewe bleateth after lamb, Lows

aft -er calf the cow;

Bul-lock start-eth, Buck to fern goes, Mer-ry sing cuc

koo! cuc-koo! cuckoo! Well sing'st thou, cuckoo! Nor cease thou ev- er now.

Although a law of Queen Elizabeth pronounced minstrels to be "rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars," music seems to have been much esteemed and cultivated during that Queen's long reign. The minor air, Which Nobody can Deny, dating from that time, is still popular and yet flourishes as a streetsong in London. In Chappell's "Music of the Olden Time," to which work we are indebted for our specimens of old English song, there are some pages of interesting and curious details illustrative of the prominence of music in the sixteenth century. Musical abilities were advertised among the qualifications of persons wishing to be servants, apprentices, or farmers. An impostor who pretended to be a shoemaker was detected because he could not "sing, sound the trumpet, play upon the flute, nor reckon up his tools in rhyme." Each trade had its special songs, and the beggars also had theirs. The fine whistling of carmen became proverbial. Baseviols hung in the parlors for the convenience of waiting guests, and were even played upon by ladies in James' reign.

Rosalind.

No barber-shop was complete without the lute, cittern, and virginals, wherewith customers might amuse themselves while waiting their turns. To read music at sight was an essential in a gentlewoman's education, and lute-strings were common New-Year's gifts to ladies. "Some idea of the number of ballads that were printed in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth, may be formed from the fact that seven hundred and ninety-six ballads, left for entry at Stationers' Hall, remained in the cupboard of the council-chamber of the company at the end of the year 1560, to be transferred to the new wardens, and only forty-four books."

A characteristic and admirable little melody is one referred to by Shakespeare in Love's Labor's Lost, Act IV, Scene 1:

Rosalind.-Shall I come upon thee with an old saying, that was a man when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it?

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Boyet. So I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when Queen Guinever of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

Thou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it, Thou canst not hit it, my good man. Boyet.

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changing. Down by the mead-ow's side

pretty birds Notes sweetly

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But however pleasing many of the old English songs may be, however original also, we must recur to our previous statement that, of all countries, Scotland and Germany stand preeminent for folk-music; and if we consider not only the number, richness, and beauty of these songs, but their present vitality in their fatherlands, and indeed all over the earth where men are sensible to refined music, Germany and Scotland appear so to surpass all other countries in this respect, that, in comparison, hardly any other can be said to have any people's-music at all. The superiority of these two exists, however, with this striking dif ference between them, that the Scottish people's-songs appear like a case of arrested development, since they exist unaccompanied by any high art. Notwithstanding the beauty, the witchery, the originality and undeniable genius of the Scotch people's-music, Scotland never produced a great composer or exhibited any scientific musical activity or power; while above the people's-songs of Germany towers that wonderful and sublime art with which all the world is familiar as the grandest musical expression of the human soul. Between the charms of the Scottish and German people's-songs we shall not venture to decide authoritatively or dogmatically. But, for ourselves, we must own that we find the shadow or the light of every mood of mind and soul reflected in the German music as we find it nowhere else. It plays upon the pulses to quicken or subdue like a beloved face, so complete is the human nature and human life on all its sides, that floats on this wonderful Amazon of melody and harmony. German life, in its habits, manners, tastes, and feelings, is a deep calm, partly philosophic, partly patriarchal. Their most populous and most busy cities are quiet haunts for medi

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boy I spied With bow and quiv - er. tation" compared to American or even English activity. When an intelligent lady, of simple tastes and poetic culture, returned recently from Germany and landed in New York, she remarked that she had not encountered any thing during her absence so fatiguing to her whole being, physical and spiritual, as the mere sight of Broadway; and she assured us that no words could do justice to the contrast between that whirling, dizzy torrent and the limpid repose of Dresden. Goethe says of his grandfather: "In his room I never saw a novelty. I recollect no form of existence that ever gave me, to such a degree, the feeling of unbroken calm and perpetuity." Therefore German music has a serenity and placid depth, a restfulness and repose, which come like a voice or memory recalling childhood's home, and fold the soul again upon the bosom of maternal peace. But German life, too, has been a tragedy, a battle for freedom; the Fatherland has been invaded by Frenchmen, and the young men went to war. Therefore German people's-music is on fire with fervent patriotism and martial sacrifice. The Fatherland! the Fatherland! rings like a clarion through it; it is tender and thrilling, too, with the rapture of passionate partings, devoted deaths or glad returns. And in the whole circle of its subjects and passions, from the quiet contemplation of nature to patriotic and martial pride, there is one thing that this music always is-it is always believing in tone; there is not a skeptical song, not a faithless refrain, not a melody or note of moral indifference or hopelessness in these people's-songs, so far as we have become acquainted with them. "In his songs and in his lectures," it has been said, "the German dreams of making a heaven of earth." A kind of glow is cast over all common

things and daily life; nature is beautiful in the common landscapes of the Fatherland. The hunter's life and the song of the shepherd-boy; the sleeping babe and the quiet of the night; friendship and companionship; domestic peace and modest content; the delights of social pleasure and the German beermug; the dance and common stories; all these are sung with a certain warm heartiness and cheer, a simple good faith and belief in human nature and pleasure in things as we find them; a sensitiveness to the lovely side of common things and the exalted side of lowly things, that comes like a benediction to the

tired and disappointed, and sings the heart into "leisure from itself," to soothe and sympathize. "One of the most amiable characteristics of German poetry," says a writer, "is its celebration of the domestic affections. Goethe has given us a domestic epic in his 'Hermann and Dorothea,' and Voss, in his 'Luise,' has produced a popular idyl

on the espousals of a country parson's daughter. Even Freiligrath softens the music of his verse when he sings of 'the old pictured Bible' in his father's house."

From collections comprising several thousands of the German folk-songs which we have pored over again and again in leisure hours with ever-new delight, we take a half dozen melodies, selecting specimens illustrating a few of the different kinds or classes which this music presents, and translating the songs which are sung to them in their Fatherland.

A trait of German song is its exuberance of love for the beautiful and joy in nature's perfections. There are countless songs which are only strains of joy "floating on in buoyancy of spirit and glowing with general delight in natural objects, in the bursting promise of spring, or the luxuriant profusion of summer." The following is such a song of joy:

SPRING-SONG.

1. Love-ly spring, O come thou hith-er, Spring beloved, O come again; Bring us

blossoms, leaves and singing, Deck again the field and plain.

La la la la La la la, &c.

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1. O shepherd-boy, O shepherd-boy, Thou sing'st so fresh and free,

Down

from thy ver- dant mountain side Thy cheerful mel- o dy.

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1. Darling, let me kiss thee; Dar-ling dear, good night;

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Now to

Now shut thy little

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