Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I FROM THE REFORMATION TO THE PURITAN REVOLUTION A TTENTION has jtfiet/ been drawn to a certain flatnessiffthe vernacular literature of the West in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Of this there were many causes, the absorption of the more gifted in classical study, the preoccupation of the more earnest with religious controversy, the temporary vulgarisation of letters that came with the invention of printing. In Germany especially these tendencies had full play, and the most characteristic poetry that it then produced arose from the ranks of artizans and tradesmen in the associations of the master-singers. Among these, by far the most attractive and notable figure is Hans Sachs, the " cobbler-bard" of Niirnberg, who lived from 1494 to 1576, and spent the most of his long life in sedulous cultivation of " the benignant art." Of course, from such a man in such surroundings at such a time we must not look for any supreme masterpiece of beauty. In flights of fancy he as a worthy citizen could not indulge; at excess of passion he looked askance ; of graceof form he has but a dim and distorted presentiment. He is at his best when he is recounting some homely story that can be treated with quiet humour or pathos, and that can be made to serve for profit and edification. At the same time the life of the city was alert and multiple, many interests came within its sweep, and to satisfy these Hans Sachs had recourse to some subjects that he was hardly qualified to treat with perfect tact or sympathy ; contemporary Italian novels, stories from classical antiquity, and stray fragments from the medieval store. There were two reasons why the last-named should bulk largely in his repertory. In the first place, the most thorough-going revolutions remain dependent on what the...