The end is of rather startling abruptness; we should have liked to have heard of the rewards and punishment, _a la_ modern novel. One song took its rise at this time which is even to-day a popular one, the world over. We refer to the music of the song now known as, “We won’t go Home till morning,” or “For he’s a jolly good fellow;” and known in France as “Malbrook s’en va-t-en Guerre.” This was a favorite air at the time of the crusades, and the crusaders often made it resound before Jerusalem. The Arabs first knew the melody and have retained it to this day. The Arab fellahs will listen apathetically to the whole repertoire of a European orchestra; but the moment that the above tune is played, the whole aspect changes, and instead of a lifeless audience, the performers have the most enthusiastic of listeners.[277] In the course of descent from the Crusaders and ancient musicians, the tune has become a little quicker but is not changed in any material respect. Some time after the decline of Minne-singing, an attempt was made to revive its glories, by musical competitions, somewhat similar in style; but the essence of the real “Minne” was gone; it was no longer the knight singing to his love, or telling in unaffected verse, the beauties of Nature. Instead of this, there was a competition of burgers and tradespeople, affecting a passion foreign to their nature, and caring far more for a stilted style of verse, than for the subject of it. Such were the Meister-singers;[278] Nuremburg was their chief seat, and like all the tradesmen of that age, they made their Guild a very close one. No one could be admitted as a Master, unless he invented a new style of rhyme. Almost all the members came from the lower classes, and the result of such tyros endeavoring to strike out paths which would have been difficult even to genius, can be imagined. Hans Sachs (a Nuremberg shoe-maker) and a couple of others, were probably all that sang with real poetic feeling. Their songs were also accompanied with music. There was a severe set of rules regulating the poetical and musical contests; and the Guild spread over all Germany; the last vestige of it did not disappear until as recently as 1839. But while this stultified mode of music was going on in Nuremberg, a truer musical plant was growing beside it: at this time the Volks-lied (folk song) took its rise in Germany. The first form of the volks-lied was religious, and it was of a simplicity which adapted it to the wants of the people. The pedantry of the Meister-singers had an excellent effect upon this class of composition, for it added counterpoint and harmony (even if driven to excess) to a class of music which was able to bear it. Another order of music was that connected with the miracle plays, where scriptural events were represented upon the stage, with music. Much of this music was taken bodily from the ecclesiastical chants of the period.