Macready's eldest son when a child was confined to the house by illness, and Browning wrote this jeu d'esprit to amuse the child and give him a subject for illustrative drawings.
I
Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its wall on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so