had heard to-morrow: he would call it a nice illusion, an
immaterial prettiness; he would ask triumphantly 'How are you to get
the mass of men to heed this little thing?' he would have persevered
and insisted '_My wife_ does not hear it'.

But although a suspicion of beauty, and a taste for ugly reality, have
led Mr. Browning to exaggerate the functions, and to caricature the
nature of grotesque art, we own or rather we maintain that he has
given many excellent specimens of that art within its proper
boundaries and limits. Take an example, his picture of what we may
call the _bourgeois_ nature in _difficulties_; in the utmost
difficulty, in contact with magic and the supernatural. He has made of
it something homely, comic, true; reminding us of what _bourgeois_
nature really is. By showing us the type under abnormal conditions,
he reminds us of the type under its best and most satisfactory
conditions--

Hamelin Town's in Brunswick,
By famous Hanover city;
The river Weser, deep and wide,
Washes its walls on the southern side;
A pleasanter spot you never spied;
But, when begins my ditty,
Almost five hundred years ago,
To see the townsfolk suffer so
From vermin was a pity.

Rats!
They fought the dogs, and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.

At last the people in a body
To the Town Hall came flocking:
''Tis clear', cried they, 'our Mayor's a noddy;
And as for our Corporation--shocking
To think we buy gowns lined with ermine
For dolts that can't or won't determine
What's best to rid us of our vermin!
You hope, because you're old and obese,
To find in the furry civic robe ease?
Rouse up, Sirs! Give your brains a racking
To find the remedy we're lacking,
Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!'
At this the Mayor and Corporation
Quaked with a mighty consternation.

A person of musical abilities proposes to extricate the civic
dignitaries from the difficulty, and they promise him a thousand
guilders if he does.

Into the street the Piper stept,