the lady is all that is attractive, and goodly sport is expected.  Hans Sachs himself, though past middle-age, loves her, and might well hope to win; Beckmesser, another master of the guild, means to do his best; and a young knight, Walther von Stolzing, has just become infatuated with her and she with him.  He cannot strive in the contest, however, not being a master; and when he submits to a trial the guild rejects him with scorn.  Things have arrived at this point at the end of the first Act.  In the next, Walther and Eva, desperate, resolve to fly under cover of darkness; Sachs overhears them planning and sings a curious sort of warning-song, letting them know that he is on the look-out and will prevent the elopement; Beckmesser comes to serenade Eva, and David, an apprentice, thinks he has come after his (David’s) sweetheart and falls to fisticuffs with him; there is a street row, amidst which Eva escapes into her father’s house, while Sachs pulls Walther into his.  In the third Act Eva, who has already told Sachs quite plainly enough that if only a master may win her, and Walther cannot become a master, she prefers him to any other, practically repeats her hint.  But Walther has composed another song and Sachs has devised a scheme:  if Walther sings his song he is certain to be the victor, and Sachs has determined that by hook or by crook he must sing it.  Beckmesser grabs the song, under the impression it is by Sachs; Sachs, without committing himself, tells him to make use of it at the contest if he can.  The people gather to watch and hear and judge; Beckmesser makes a muddle of the song and is laughed off the scene; then Sachs pleads Walther’s case, and he is allowed, though not a master, to sing.  He triumphs, and by one stroke is admitted to the guild and wins the prize.  Virtually the play ends here.  Sachs’ winding-up address can only be dealt with in connection with the music.

II

The personality, the soul, of Sachs, its conflict with itself, its victory over itself and renunciation—­undoubtedly Wagner felt this to be the centre of the action of the play, and undoubtedly without it he could never have gained the impulse to write the drama at all.  It gives the note of seriousness, even sadness, without which all humour is the crackling of thorns under the pot, without which the play would be farce with a trite love adventure thrown in.  We may grant that, and then ask ourselves whence came the impulse to work the thing up into one of the longest of Wagner’s operas.  The impulse was the vision of old Nuremberg—­a vision as indissolubly blent with music as was the vision of the river and the swan with the music of Lohengrin.  One may say truly that once the germ of the dramatic action was in Wagner’s brain he needed the musico-pictorial inspiration of the scenic environment and atmosphere before the thing took final shape and he could compose the music.