poem, except in one detail: the name of the town, which in Verstegen is Hamel, but in Howell, Hamelen. It is interesting to note that Browning's father, in the poem he wrote on the subject (of which the opening lines are given by Griffin and Minchin, Life, page 21), calls the town Hammelin. For this detail, then, and this detail alone, Browning seems to have been indebted to Howell, either directly or through his father.

Turning now to Nathaniel Wanley's Wonders of the Little World (London, 1678, bk. 6, ch. 19, ¶ 28; in the editions of 1774 and 1806, bk. 6, ch. 26, 23; reprinted in Cooke's Guide-Book, page 291), we note two points of agreement with Browning which are lacking in Verstegen and Howell. Wanley says that the children "perished" at "a hill called Koppen" ("Koppelberg hill," B.), and that the story is "kept by them in their annals . . . and painted in their windows and churches" ("On the great churchwindow painted," B.). On the other hand, Wanley, like Howell, lacks all of the five points in which Browning agrees with Verstegen.

What, now, as to "Wier." and " Schot."?

The treatise of Dr. Johann Wier, De Praestigiis Daemonum, went through several editions in the sixteenth century, of which I have been able to consult five. The first edition (Basileae, 1564) seems to have no mention of the Pied Piper. The third (Basileae, 1566) has a short notice in book 1, chapter 13. But since Wanley refers to "li. 1 c. 16," his source must be a still later edition, like that which bears the imprint Basileae 1583, and which contains the following account in the sixteenth chapter of the first book:

Tibicen quidam Hammelae Brunswicorum ad eliciendos glires conductus, sequenti rependit facinore ingratitudinem, cum illi ex pacto non satisfieret. Anno siquidem millesimo ducentesimo octuagesimo quarto, die vicesimosexto Iunii, hunc tibicinem Omnicolorem nuncupatum ob vestis varietatem, centum et triginta pueri per plateam inde nomen, ut audies, sortitam, non procul extra civitatem usque ad Calvariae locum sub Koppen nuncupatum, ad viam communem Boream versus situm, sequuti periere, nec unquam postea apparuere. Haec ita in annalibus conscripta, Hammelae in archivis religiose custodiuntur: leguntur et in libris templi sacris, atque in eiusdem vitris picta conspiciuntur: cuius rei oculatus equidem testis sum. Vetus

1 Not North," as Furnival writes, perhaps from a misreading of Browning's handwriting.

tior praeterea Magistratus in historiae huius confirmationem suis codicillis publicis inscribere solet coniunctim, Anno Christi, etc. et exitus puerorum anno, etc. Observatur vero in hunc usque diem ad perpetuam rei gestae memoriam, quod tympani sonitus nunquam in eadem admittatur platea, per quam egressi pueri, si forte isthinc aliqua educitur sponsa, donec ex illa exierit: nec etiam choreae in eadem ducuntur. Hinc et nomen consequuta est platea, Burgelosestrass. Mane post septimam horam contigisse hoc fertur, et fuisse in puerorum numero consulis filiam iam plenis nubilem annis, quae simul evanuit. Puer vero quidam nonnihil sequutus, necdum vestitus, volens suas adferre vestes, rediit domum: interea autem evanuere omnes in exigua fovea colliculi, quae mihi ostensa est. En diabolum tibicinem sanguinarium.

The German version of Wier's book published at Frankfort in 1586 gives the same account (page 43), with one or two additional details which are of no consequence to us; and even closer is the French translation of 1579, as reprinted in the Bibliothèque Diabolique (J. Wier, Histoires, disputes et discours etc., Paris, 1885, liv. 1, ch. 16; vol. 1, p. 84).

It may be noted that Wier has what looks like an earlier version of Verstegen's story of the lame boy; here, a boy who returned home to finish dressing! But there is nothing else in his account that calls for remark. We look in vain to Wier (at any rate, in these five editions) for any of the five points of agreement between Verstegen and Browning, or any other characteristic detail lacking in Verstegen, except those already noted in Wanley.

Now for the Physica Curiosa of G. Schott (Herbipoli, 1622, page 519). It tells a good story, even if not Browning's:

De pueris Hammelensibus seductis a Mago.-Inter Mirabilia hominum merito numerari potest exitus atque seductio puerorum Hammeliae, quod oppidum est inferioris Saxoniae ad Visurgim fluvium situm. Historiam narrant quam plurimi Auctores. . . . Cum dicti oppidi indigenae eo anno [1284, the usual date] ingentibus murium agminibus infestarentur, malumque in tantum cresceret, ut nihil fere sive fructuum, sive segetum, quod eorum rosionibus non esset obnoxium, reperiretur; vir quidam invisus ante hac, et staturae prodigiosae comparuit; qui quicquid murium eo in oppido, eiusque districtu esset, confestim sublaturum se, dummodo de certa pecuniae summa secum paciscerentur, pollicitus est. Nec segnius quam promisit, effecit. Nam promissa mercede, dictus vir ex pera, qua cinctus erat, fistulam (utriculus is erat) extraxit: et simul atque eam inflavit, ingentia murium agmina ex omnibus domorum angulis ac foraminibus prorupere, et aulaedum illum praeeuntem extra oppidum ad flumen usque sunt

2 auledus, tibicen.-Du Cange.

secuta. Ibi aulaedum succincta veste flumen ingredientem sorices secuti, una omnes spontanea submersione perierunt. Hoc peracto, vir ille condictam mercedem exposcit. Verum cum cives de pecunia promissa solvenda tergiversarentur, minacibus illos verbis increpuit, asseruitque, nisi mercedem darent, futurum, ut aliam exigeret mercedem multo promissa graviorem. Minae cum risu acceptae sunt. Vertente igitur anno, die 26. Junii, circa meridiem denuo vir dictus comparuit habitu venatoris, vultu terribili, purpureo inusitatae compositionis pileo; fistulamque aliam longe a priori diversam simul ac insonuit; ecce pueri ac puellae numero 130. derepente confluunt, et ludionem extra oppidum tripudiantes sequuntur. Est extra oppidum mons, seu potius collis, quem Calvariae montem (Köpffelberg dicunt incolae loci illius) vocant, et in monte caverna sat ampla, iumentorum stabulationi apta. In hanc cavernam una secum omnes pueros duxit venator. Atque ab eo tempore nullus unquam puerorum comparuit amplius, nec unquam rescitum deinde, quid de iis factum, aut quo abierint. Unica puella, quae infantem brachiis gestabat, et praeuntes assequi non poterat, rem a longe aspexit, et regressa oppidanos monuit; qui agminatim omnes egressi, per loca omnia, et omnes angulos, liberos, sed frustra, quaesiverunt.

Historiam hanc omnes Hammelenses, traditione a majoribus accepta, veram esse testantur. Eandem exhibet pictura minuta in fenestra quadam Parochialis Ecclesiae oppidi. . . . Plurima alia in eodem oppido, et extra illud, extant vestigia. . . Addunt multi, oppidanos, ab illo tempore, quo res tam insolens et funesta contigit, annos suos in instrumentis publicis computare solitos ab anno Exitus puerorum suorum."'

...

There are some minor agreements here with Browning's version. The piper is "staturae prodigiosae" ("he himself was tall and thin"?); the piper's words ("futurum, ut aliam exigeret mercedem multo promissa graviorem ") are certainly closer to Browning's "folks who put me in a passion May find me pipe after another fashion," than is Verstegen's simple statement "He threatened them with reuenge "; the children follow "tripudiantes ("Tripping and skipping"); and Köpffelberg is more like Koppelberg than is Wanley's "hill called Koppen." It is possible, then -I think, hardly more-that Browning used Schott. But we still lack all of the five points of agreement with Verstegen, including the date.

But another question now presents itself. Did the poet perhaps use some source which has not yet entered the discussion? In search of an answer, I have examined the following accounts, comprising, not all those which Browning might possibly have consulted, but all those easily available here, and, I think, a sufficient number for the purpose:

A. Fretaghius, a letter dated 1580, quoted in Schott: Magia Universalis (Herbipoli, 1657), p. 201.

J. Pomarius: Chronica der Sachsen und Nidersachsen (Wittenberg, 1588), p. 419.

An anonymous rhyming chronicle of the end of the sixteenth century, quoted in Dörries: Der Rattenfänger von Hameln (in Zsch. des hist. Vereins für Niedersachsen, Jahrg. 1880), p. 171.

J. Lampadius: Mellificii Historici Pars 3 (Marpurgi, 1617), p. 365. P. Camerarius: Operae Horarum Subcisivarum (Francofurti, 1620), p. 48.

R. Burton: Anatomy of Melancholy, part 1, sec. 2, mem. 1, subs. 2; 5th ed. (London, 1638), p. 52.

A. Kircher: Musurgia Universalis (Romae, 1650), vol. 2, p. 232.

H. More: An Antidote against Atheism (2nd ed., London, 1655), p. 184. G. Schott: Magia Universalis (Herbipoli, 1657), p. 199.

P. Heylyn: Cosmographie (5th ed., London, 1677), pp. 1: 401, 2: 168. H. Meibom: Rerum Germanicarum Tomi III (Helmaestadii, 1688), vol. 3, p. 80.

J. Addison: Spectator, no. 5 (March 6, 1711; Works, London, 1804, vol. 1, p. 19).

M. H. Bünting and J. Letzner: Braunschweig-Lüneburgische Chronica (Braunschweig, 1722), vol. 1, p. 521.

J. and W. Grimm: Deutsche Sagen (3rd ed., Berlin, 1891), no. 245. P. Mérimée: Chronique du temps de Charles IX (first published 1829; Bruxelles, 1835, p. 39).3

The results of my comparison, to refer again to our five points, are these:

1. The date July 22, 1376, is given only by Pomarius and Heylyn; 1376, by Lampadius, in a short notice (An. 1376. Pueri Hamelensis egressi scribuntur, ad Calendas Graecas redituri).

3

2. "Do your worst," and 3. the lame boy, are everywhere lacking.

In order to be perfectly frank with the reader, I shall give here the list of references which I have not consulted:

A. Hondorff: Promptuarium Exemplorum (Leipzig, 1568).

P. Albinus: Meissnische Land und Berg-Chronica (Dresden, 1589-90), P. cxii.

J. Becherer: Newe Thüringische Chronica (Mülhausen, 1601),
L. Lossius: Historia Ecclesiastica, p. 264.

S. Erich: Der hamelschen Kinder Ausgang (Hanover, 1655).

N. Nieremberger: Historia Hamelensis (Wittenbergae, 1671).

p. 366.

J. Seyfried: Medulla mirabilium naturae (Sultzbach, 1679), p. 476. Kirchmayer: Vom unglücklichen Ausgang etc. (Dresden, 1702).

J. Hübner: Geographie (Hamburg, 1736), vol. 3, p. 611.

4. The statement that no tavern was allowed in the street is in Pomarius only.

5. Concluding remarks about Transylvania are in Fretaghius, Kircher, Mérimée, and elsewhere; but not in Pomarius.

Thus none of these other versions agrees with Verstegen in more than two of his characteristic details. Pomarius, who agrees in points 1 and 4, is evidently one of Verstegen's sources; Verstegen quotes him on the preceding page (84) and takes from him four of his cuts of the "Saxon gods" (Pomarius, pp. 28, 43, 45, 49; Verstegen, pp. 78, 74, 70, 69). For the parallel we may compare, e. g.:

Als bald hat dieser ebentewrer ein helles Pfeifflein geblasen / da seind die Ratzen aus allen gassen und heusern hauffen weise herfür gelauffen / und haben sich zusammen gethan/ welche er denn in die Weser gefüheret vnd erseuffet hat (Pomarius).

The pide Piper with a shrill pipe went piping through the streets, and forthwith the rats came all running out of the houses in great numbers after him; all which hee led into the riuer of Weaser and therein drowned them (Verstegen).

But Pomarius passes rapidly over the scene of the quarrel, which Verstegen amplifies, using here some version like that of Schott, from which also he takes the information about Transylvania. Heylyn, who is the only other writer on our list who gives the full 1376 date, admittedly takes his short account from Verstegen. The upshot of all this is, that Browning either (1) repeated, after Verstegen and with very similar results, the process of combining Pomarius with another account, and happened to invent the lame bcy, and to write, "Do your worst "; or (2) used some account not on our list, which embodied Verstegen's five characteristic details; or (3) used Verstegen.

The second of these possibilities is suggested by Griffin and Minchin, who give (Life, pp. 20-21) as the sources of the poem Wanley, Howell, and the oral communication of the poet's father. We know that the latter was interested in the story, and wrote a poem on the subject, as pointed out by Griffin and Minchin (page 21). It is possible, then, that Browning's father gave him an oral, or a written, account of the story, containing the details characteristic of Verstegen's account, which Browning then incorporated in his poem. The evidence, at any rate, is convincing that he knew Verstegen, either in this indirect maner, or directly.