Whatever may be thought of the value of the well-known aphorism, "_Let me make a nation's Ballads; who will may make their Laws_"--it can hardly be denied that through the popular songs of a country we ascertain to a great extent the characteristic views and sentiments of the inhabitants. The villagers of Alsace recently may not have been in the mood for singing their old cherished songs; otherwise the German soldiers must have been struck by recognizing among the ditties old familiar friends slightly disguised by the peculiar dialect of the district. Take, for instance, the cradle songs, or initiatory lessons as they might be called. Here is one as sung by the countrywomen of Alsace:-- "Schlof, Kindele, schlof! Dien Vadder hied die Schof, Dien Muedder hied die L‰mmele, Drum schlof du guldi's Engele; Schlof, Kindele, schlof!" (Sleep, darling, sleep! Thy father tends the sheep, Thy mother tends the lambkins dear, Sleep then, my precious angel, here; Sleep, darling, sleep!) And another:-- "Aie Bubbaie was rasselt im Stroh? D'G‰nsle gehn baarfuesz, sie han keen Schueh; Der Schuester het's Leder, keen Leiste derzue." (Hush-a-bye baby, what rustles the straw? Poor goslings go barefoot, they have not a shoe; The souter has leather, no last that will do.) Making allowance for the pronunciation of the words, which sounds odd to the North-German ear, these are the identical lullabies with which the mothers in the villages near Hanover sing their babies to sleep. Some of the old ballads, legends, fairy-tales, and proverbs, popular in Alsace, are current throughout almost the whole of Germany. Then we have the old-fashioned invitation to the wedding feast, stiff and formal, as it is observed especially in Lower Alsace, and likewise in the villages of Hanover and other districts of North Germany. In Alsace the weddings take place on a Tuesday, because, they say, we read in the Bible: "And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee." In sacred poetry Alsace can pride herself upon having produced some of the most distinguished German writers. The oldest known of these is Ottfried von Weissenburg, who lived about the middle of the ninth century. Gottfried von Strassburg, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, was renowned as a writer of hymns as well as of _Minnelieder_. The first sacred songs of a popular character recorded in Alsace date from about the middle of the fourteenth century. But it is especially since the time of the Reformation that this branch of sacred poetry has been much cultivated here as in other parts of Germany. The authors of sacred poetry were generally either theologians or musicians. The latter often composed the words as well as the airs. Music and poetry were not cultivated so separately as is the case in our day. Of the musicians, deserves to be mentioned Wolfgang Dachstein, who, in the beginning of the sixteenth