There are many versions of this story which Browning might have used. He is said to have used directly the account in The Wonders of the Little World; or a General History of Man, written by Nathaniel Wanley and published in 1678. This poem, however, from whatever source the story was taken, was deservedly popular long before Browning himself was. It was written to amuse, during a sickness, the son of William Macready, the most prominent English actor of his time and a close friend of Browning's.
[ [249] 1. Hamelin; a town near Hanover, the capital of the province of Brunswick, Prussia.
[ [250] 37. Guilder; a Dutch coin worth about forty cents.
[ [251] 68. Trump of Doom. The Archangel Gabriel was to blow his trumpet to summon the dead on the Day of Judgment.
[ [252] 79. Pied Piper. Pied means variegated like a magpie. Cf. piebald.
[ [253] 89. Cham. The Great Cham, or Khan, was the ruler of Tartary. Marco Polo, the Venetian traveller, gives an account of him. Dr. Johnson was called the Great Cham of literature.
[ [254] 91. Nizam; a native ruler of Hyderabad, India.
[ [255] 123, 126. Julius Cæsar and his Commentary. Julius Cæsar, the great Roman general and dictator, who wrote his Commentaries on his wars in Gaul and Britain.
[ [256] 169. Poke; pocket.
[ [257] 182. Stiver; a small Dutch coin.