tragedy I composed, much against my endeavour, while in bed with a fever
two years ago--it went farther into the story of Hippolytus and Aricia;
but when I got well, putting only thus much down at once, I soon forgot
the remainder.'*

* When Mr. Browning gave me these supplementary details for
the 'Handbook', he spoke as if his illness had interrupted
the work, not preceded its conception. The real fact is, I
think, the more striking.

Mr. Browning would have been very angry with himself if he had known he
ever wrote 'I _had_ better'; and the punctuation of this note, as well as
of every other unrevised specimen which we possess of his early writing,
helps to show by what careful study of the literary art he must have
acquired his subsequent mastery of it.

'Cristina' was addressed in fancy to the Spanish queen. It is to be
regretted that the poem did not remain under its original heading of
'Queen Worship': as this gave a practical clue to the nature of the love
described, and the special remoteness of its object.

'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' and another poem were written in May 1842
for Mr. Macready's little eldest son, Willy, who was confined to the
house by illness, and who was to amuse himself by illustrating the poems
as well as reading them;* and the first of these, though not intended
for publication, was added to the 'Dramatic Lyrics', because some
columns of that number of 'Bells and Pomegranates' still required
filling. It is perhaps not known that the second was 'Crescentius, the
Pope's Legate': now included in 'Asolando'.