von Ofterdingen, and Walter von der Vogelweide, and Count Kraft von
Toggenburg, and your own ancestor, I dare say, Burkhart von
Hohenfels. They were always singing of the gentle summer-time. They
seem to have lived poetry, as well as sung it; like the birds who
make their marriage beds in the voluptuous trees."

"Is that from Shakspere?"

"No; from Lope de Vega."

"You are deeply read in the lore of antiquity, and the Aubades
and Watch-Songs of the old Minnesingers. What do you think of the
shoe-maker poets that came after them,--with their guilds and
singing-schools? It makes me laugh to think how the great German
Helicon, shrunk toa rivulet, goes bubbling and gurgling over the
pebbly names of Zwinger, Wurgendrussel, Buchenlin, Hellfire, Old
Stoll, Young Stoll, Strong Bopp, Dang Brotscheim, Batt Spiegel,
Peter Pfort, and Martin Gumpel. And then the Corporation of the
Twelve Wise Masters, with their stumpfereime and klingende-reime,
and their Hans Tindeisen's rosemary-weise; and Joseph Schmierer's
flowery-paradise-weise, and Frauenlob's yellow-weise, and
blue-weise, and frog-weise, and looking-glass-weise!"

"O, I entreat you," exclaimed Flemming, laughing, "do not call
those men poets! You transport me to quaint old Nuremberg, and I see
Hans Sachs making shoes, and Hans Folz shaving the burgomaster."

"By the way," interrupted the Baron, "did you ever read
Hoffmann's beautiful story of Master Martin, the Cooper of
Nuremberg? I will read it to you this very night. It is the most