"I sat upon the mountain, How they sprung, How they built their little nests. 1 stood in the garden, And saw the little bees; How they humm'd, How they drumm'd, How they built their little cells. 1 walked in the meadow, And how prettily they woo'd. And just then comes my dearie, And we're gay, And we do even so." We conclude this part of our subject with one lay more; which, displaying as it does a good deal of imagination, seems to us happily calculated to characterize German popular poetry in its relation to that of the other Teutonic nations. From the verse, "Flög' ich zu dir, mein Schatz, ins Reich," which we have rendered, "I'd fly far far away to thee," we must conclude that Northern Germany is its home; since the common people used this expression to designate the South, with the exception of Austria. LOVE'S WISHES. "In the world I have no pleasure, Lady Nightingale, Lady Nightingale, Then to the goldsmith's house I go, Ah goldsmith, ah, dear goldsmith mine, Not too large, not too small, let it And let my name be written there, Had I of purest gold a key, My heart I would unlock to thee; If I a little woodbird were, And when I'd sung enough, from there Had I two wings as has the dove, To where my dearest one does dwell. And when I was at last by thee, Away from thee-my Love, farewell!" IV. We conclude with a few remarks on the ancient popular poetry of Holland. The most appropriate place perhaps, would have been, where we spoke of Northern Germany and the Low German dialect.* Dutch poetry, as a branch of literature, is certainly independent of Germany. Dutch popular poetry, however, is only one of those numerous overflowings from the same great and deep well, which water in various ways the different regions of that whole country. It is at least as intimately connected with the poetry of the other Low German dialects, as are the Swiss ballads and songs *The Dutch language is a daughter of one of the two principal dialects of the German, viz. of the Saxon or Low German. The Anglo-Saxon, the Low Saxon, the Dutch, and the Flemish, are considered as sister dialects; all four originating immediately from the Saxon or Low German tongue. The Anglo-Saxon is still extant, although much altered, in the Frisian dialect; and, mixed with Danish and Norman French, in the English language. The Low Saxon, familiarly called Plattdeutsch, is spoken by the common people throughout the whole north of Germany and Prussia, in various different dialects. The Flemish and Dutch are confined to the Low Countries. with those of the Upper German; and as nearly related to both these latter, as are the other dialects of the Low German. Popular Poetry, we regret to say, no longer exists in Holland. The old ballads, perhaps still more extensively than in the North of Germany, are supplanted by opera airs and modern compositions of fashionable poets. To know what was once the recreation of their ancestors, we must consult their Chronicles, or the collections of Le Jeune and Hoffmann. And in these we meet with the same variety, and in this variety the same genius, which characterizes their brethren in Germany. Most of the romantic ballads of both these nations, are possessed by them in common; and the same relation exists between them, as between the Swedish and Danish. Ballads which are still heard, although in solitary instances, in the southern valley of the Oder, or in the regions of the Upper Rhine and Neckar, were some fifty years ago still sung by the peasant-girls on the Schelde. We even meet with traditions, which, by their being attached to certain localities, we should have concluded to belong exclusively to those places; e. g. the legend of the "Tannhäuser," which the Dutch possess in their tale of "Heer Danielkeen." There is, however, one class of ballads, of which the Dutch have a more exclusive possession; and of which no similar species is met with among the Germans, except in a few pieces preserved in the Kuhländchen; nor among other nations, except in some of the English Christmas carols. These are Bible ballads, relating principally to our Saviour's birth and education, and to his resurrection. These narrative ballads were formerly sung indiscriminately along with Christmas and Easter hymns of a merely lyric character. The German scholar, who published two years since the judicious collection of Dutch popular songs, the title of which stands at the head of this article, says in respect to the older spiritual songs of Holland: "The greatest portion of them appeared in the middle of the fifteenth century, and disappeared again before the close of the following one. Many of them found favor with the people, and might therefore justly lay claim to the title of popular songs. These, like all other religious songs, were for the most part either adapted to the airs of profane songs or imitated from them. The greater number, however, were not so widely diffused, but confined rather to the circle of private devotion. Moreover, from the nature of their contents, they were necessarily limited to a very small circle; since the greater part of these were songs which treated of the nature and circumstances of the soul in love with the Saviour, and of the means by which it sought to gain the affections of its bridegroom, Jesus Christ. Other classes of sacred songs were severally devoted to the celebration of the birth and resurrection of Christ, and to the praises of the blessed Virgin. Thus then, the earlier sacred poetry of Holland consisted only of four descriptions of songs, viz. Christmas Carols, Easter Hymns, Songs on the Virgin, and Songs on Christian Faith and Doctrine." The two latter classes the Dutch possessed in common with all Christians, and especially the Roman Catholic nations of Europe. They disappeared in Holland in the same proportion as the Reformation spread. Among the German Protestants, only the hymns of the Moravians and of the School of Pietists, so called, the followers of the venerable Franke and Spener, breathe the identical spirit of these Dutch religious songs. There is the same dulcet play with the heavenly Bridegroom, which delights in adapting all the glowing colors and expressions of earthly love to the relation between the soul and Christ, and gives even to the purest feelings a dress of sensuality. Nothing could be more unlike the equally fervent, but sound and racy piety of the German spiritual singers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Flemmings and the Gerhardts! Of the two other classes, which we designated above as Bible ballads, we find among the Germans only a few traces. The so called Fulneck Carols are principally lyric. They are very ancient, and full of allusions hardly intelligible in our day. They resemble in some measure the Slavic songs of this description, which have mostly come down from time immemorial; and they have, on the whole, as little meaning as these latter. To the few Scripture ballads still extant in the southern valley of the Oder, and perhaps in some other places, the following remarks of Hoffmann hold good, as well as to the Dutch. “The Carols or Christmas Songs," he continues, are those which most deserve our attention. In them we may clearly discern the childlike religious spirit of the olden time, when men were not content to relate in song the history of our Saviour's birth simply as recorded in the Scriptures; but sought by little traits drawn from national and domestic life, to make it more attractive and instructive; and so to apply it directly to the hearts of the pious and the faithful."* These Bible ballads, in which the scenes of Scripture were thus in a highly naïve and popular way rendered familiar to the nation, emanated from the same spirit which induced the Dutch and Flemish painters to conceive and represent many of the same subjects in a style peculiar to themselves, at least in the extent to which they carried it. An English Reviewer observes,† that the custom of familiarizing from reverential and affectionate motives the personages and events of Scripture, was as universal among other nations as among the Dutch. This is true to a certain extent. All popular poetry bears exactly the stamp of the time which produced it. No popular reciter of a scripture tale would ever think of giving it an oriental coloring, nor of imprinting upon it the stamp of that sublimity, which cultivated Christians are accustomed to associate with the thoughts of God and Christ. There exist numerous German popular tales and legends relating to the divine government, to St. Peter and the keys of heaven, etc. St. Peter bears, in general, the character of extreme forwardness, and his presumption is corrected by the Lord Jesus Christ, or by God the Father himself. In one of these legends the Lord, travelling with his disciples, sees a broken horse-shoe lying in the path, and bids -Peter pick it up. But Peter pushes it contemptuously away with his foot. The Lord then, in his mild way, picks it up himself, and coming to a blacksmith's shop, sells it for three-pence. For these three-pence he buys cherries, and, after a long and fatiguing journey, when all suffer from thirst, he drops them one after another. Peter picks up the cherries with avidity, one by one, and instead of stooping once must stoop now twenty times; and is thus convinced that he ought not to despise the mean and the little. In another German legend, the author of which is the celebrated Master-singer Hans Sachs, the same apostle presumes to blame the divine government. Christ smiles and gives him the sceptre for one day. Just then a poor woman comes along leading a young goat to pasture. "Go," she says, "go in the Lord's name, God will shelter thee from wolves and from thunder; I must go home and work for my daily wages and get |