Note 20 — Chapter I

Herder, Zerstreute Blätter, vol. v. p. 169, 184. Heinsius, Lehrbuch der Deutschen Sprachwissenschaft, iv. 29. Bouterwek Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, vol. ix. p. 78, 82. The author is unknown; aber dem unbekannten sichert sein werk die unsterblichkeit, says the latter critic. One might raise a question as to the capacity of an anonymous author to possess immortal fame. Nothing equal to this poem, he says occurs in the earlier German poetry: it is an outpouring of genius, not without faults, but full of power and feeling: the dialect is still Frankish, but approaches to Swabian. Herder calls it a truly Pindaric song. He has given large extracts from it in the volume above quoted, which glows with his own fine sense of beauty.