The Pied Piper's Anniversary

1915

Recently occurred the anniversary of the visit to "Hamelin Town in Brunswick," in 1876 of him "who, for the fantastical coat which he wore being wrought with sundry colors, was called the Pied Piper."

Old Verstegan told the story in prose of how "the Pied Piper, with a shrill pipe went through all the streets, and forthwith the rats came all running out of the houses in great numbers after him; all of which he led into the river of Weser, and therein drowned them."

It is to Macready's young son that we are debtors for the poem, for it was he who persuaded Browning to weave the prose into poetry to amuse a sick child. Its preservation was due to a lucky accident, for in Browning's next collection of poems was a blank page or two to be filled, and "The Pied Piper of Hamelin" was just big enough to do it. So if in his life the Pied Piper destroyed hundreds of children his biography has amused thousands. — London Chronicle.