he invited Browning, among other friends, to come on the last day of December
and spend New Year's Day (1836).** When alluding, in after years,
to this visit, Browning always spoke of it as one of the red-letter days
of his life. It was here he first met Forster, with whom he at once formed
what proved to be an enduring friendship; and on this occasion, also,
that he was urged by his host to write a poetic play.

--
* For many interesting particulars concerning Macready and Browning,
and the production of "Strafford", etc., see the `Reminiscences', vol. 1.
** It was for Macready's eldest boy, William Charles, that Browning wrote
one of the most widely popular of his poems, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin".
It is said to have been an impromptu performance, and to have been
so little valued by the author that he hesitated about its inclusion
in "Bells and Pomegranates". It was inserted at the last moment,
in the third number, which was short of "copy". Some one (anonymous,
but whom I take to be Mr. Nettleship) has publicly alluded
to his possession of a rival poem (entitled, simply, "Hamelin")
by Robert Browning the elder, and of a letter which he had sent to a friend
along with the verses, in which he writes: "Before I knew
that Robert had begun the story of the `Rats' I had contemplated a tale
on the same subject, and proceeded with it as far as you see,
but, on hearing that Robert had a similar one on hand, I desisted."
This must have been in 1842, for it was in that year
that the third part of `Bells and Pomegranates' was published.
In 1843, however, he finished it. Browning's "Pied Piper"
has been translated into French, Russian, Italian, and German.
The latter (or one German) version is in prose. It was made in 1880,
for a special purpose, and occupied the whole of one number
of the local paper of Hameln, which is a quaint townlet in Hanover.