MA'STER-SING'ERS, a class of poets who flourished in Germany during the 15th and part of the 16th century. They were confined to a few imperial towns, and their chief seat was the city of Nu remberg. They were generally of burg her extraction ; and formed regular cor porations, into which profieients were admitted by the ordinary course of ap prenticeship. Their poetry (generally confined to devot ion al or scriptural pieces, legendary talcs, with some admixture of satire and amatory lyrics) was subjected to a peculiar and pedantic code of laws, both composition and remitication ; and a board of judges (styled merker) assem bled to hear the poems recited, and mark the faults which might be committed in either purl : he who had the fewest faults received the prize. Hans Sachs, the famous cobbler of Nuremberg, was a member of these societies; although his genius was of too independent a charac ter to submit to the trammels of their poetical regulations.
in Spanish hull-lights, the name given to the person who gives the death wound to the bull. After the
bandvr'illeros have goaded the animal to madness by fastening squibs upon him and discharging them, the matador (el matador, the killer,) advances with a naked sword and aims a fatal blow at hint. If this is effectual, the slaughtered animal is dragged away and another is brought forward.
the doctrine held by those who maintain that the soul of man is not a spiritual substance distinct from matter, but that it is the result or effect of the organization of matter in the body. This theory, however, does not explain how matter can think, and how physical motion can produce mental changes, which we do not observe in se many organic beings. In decided oppo sition to materialism, is our consciousness of the identity and liberty of man, which would be annihilated by it, because mat ter is governed by the necessity of nature, and free will therefore excluded.