There are few phenomena in the record of art more extraordinary than this unflagging cataract of inspiration, in which masterpiece followed masterpiece with the monotonous periodicity of a Sunday sermon. Its musical significance has been presented with illuminating exegesis by more than one commentator. But its literary apparatus has captured little attention. Yet Bach’s task must have been materially eased or aggravated according as the supply of libretti was regular or infrequent, while the flow of his inspiration must have been governed by their quality. Moreover, the libretto was the medium through which he offered the homage of his art to the service of God. The subject therefore deserves attention. However trivial, measured against the immensities of Bach’s genius, the study will at least provide a platform from which to contemplate it. At the outset the opinion may be hazarded that the provision of his weekly libretti caused Bach greater anxiety than the setting of them to music, a task which he accomplished with almost magical facility. It is true that from the early part of the 18th century cycles of Cantata texts for the Church’s year were not infrequently published. Bach was in more or less intimate touch with the authors of four, perhaps five, printed collections of the kind. But he used them with surprising infrequency. Neumeister’s published cycles provided him with seven libretti,(351) Franck’s with sixteen,(352) Picander’s with ten,(353) Marianne von Ziegler’s with nine,(354) and Helbig’s with two.(355) He took three libretti from the Bible,(356) and the hymn-book furnished him with eleven more.(357) But all these published sources together only account for fifty-eight texts. Bach possessed only one book that could assist his own efforts at authorship—Paul Wagner’s eight-volumed Hymn-book—whence he took the stanzas which decorate his Cantatas like jewels in the rare settings he gave them. It was, therefore, mainly upon writers with whom he was brought into occasional or official contact that Bach depended for his texts.