ognise in him something higher
and larger than can be found in any of them, as well as something more
human, if even in the best sense more fairy-tale like, than the
earlier and more Western legends of the Graal as we have them in
_Merlin_ and the other French books. Here again, not so much for the
form as for the spirit, we find ourselves driven to the word
"great"--a great word, and one not to be misused as it so often is.

[Sidenote: _Walther von der Vogelweide._]

Yet it may be applied in a different sense, though without hesitation,
to our fourth selected name, Walther von der Vogelweide,[120] a name
in itself so agreeable that one really has to take care lest it raise
an undue prejudice in his favour. Perhaps a part of his greatness
belongs to him as the chief representative of a class, not, as in
Wolfram's case, because of individual merit,--a part also to his
excellence of form, which is a claim always regarded with doubt and
dislike by some, though not all. It is nearly a quarter of a century
since the present writer first possessed himself of and first read the
delectable volume in which Franz Pfeiffer opened his series of German
Classics of the Middle Ages with this singer; and every subsequent
reading, in whole or in part, has only increased his attraction.
There are some writers--not many--who seem to defy criticism by a sort
of native charm, and of these Walther is one. If we listen to some
grave persons, it is a childish thing to write a poem, as he does his
second _Lied_, in stanzas every one of which is mono-rhymed on a
different vowel. But as one reads

"Diu werlt was gelf, roet unde bla,"[121]

one only prays for more such childishness. Is there a better song of
May and maidens than

"So diu bluomen uz dem grase dringent"?

where the very phrase is romance and nature itself, and could never be
indulged in by a "classical" poet, who would say (very justly),
"flowers grow in beds, not grass; and if in the latter, they ought to
be promptly mown and rolled down." How intoxicating, after deserts of
iambs, is the dactylic swell of

"Wol mich der stunde, daz ich sie erkande"!

how endearing the drooping cadence of

"Bin ich dir unmaere
Des enweiz ich niht; ich minne dich"!

how small the change which makes a jewel out of a commonplace in

"Si hat ein _kussen_ daz ist rot"!

[Footnote 120: Ed. Bartsch. 4th ed. Leipzig, 1873.]

[Footnote 121:

"Diu werlt w