6. _Another child for tending._ With a longing for guidance and protection Browning imagines himself as a child under the guardianship of the angel.
16. _Like that child._ The child in the picture looks into the heavens. Browning would look only at the gracious face of the angel.
46. _My angel._ Cf. "My love," l. 54. Both refer to Mrs. Browning.
_Pauline_ (1832) has many references to Shelley; note especially lines 151-229; 1020-1031. Browning's "Essay on Shelley" appeared in 1852. "Memorabilia" was composed in 1853-4.
18-28. That later in life Browning "came to think unfavorably of Shelley as a man and to esteem him less highly as a poet" is shown by a letter written to Dr. Furnivall: "For myself I painfully contrast my notions of Shelley the _man_ and Shelley, well, even the _poet_, with what they were sixty years ago." (Quoted by Mr. Dowden: _Robert Browning_, p. 10.) Mr. Browning declined an invitation to be president of the Shelley Society. For a discussion of Shelley's influence on Browning see _Poet-Lore_, Volume VII, January, 1895.
Ratisbon, a city of Bavaria, was stormed by Napoleon in 1809. The story told in the poem is a true one, but its hero was a man, not a boy.
The original title in _Dramatic Lyrics_, 1842, was "Italy." It is a poem of the Italian Renaissance. Frà Pandolf and Claus of Innsbruck are, however, imaginary artists.
There is no known original for the story of Theocrite, but it is in accord with the Roman Catholic belief that angels watch over human beings and are interested in their affairs. In the last line is the fundamental lesson of the poem. Compare the thought of Pippa in the song "All service ranks the same with God." See Leigh Hunt's "King Robert of Sicily" (in _A Jar of Honey_, ch. vi.) and Longfellow's "King Robert of Sicily" (in _Tales of a Wayside Inn_) for an analogous legend.
This poem was written to amuse little Willie Macready who was ill and wished a poem for which he could make illustrations. There are many legends that deal with the refusal of a reward promised to a magician for some stipulated service. Mr. Berdoe (_Browning Cyclopædia_, p. 339) says that the story given here is based on an account by Verstegan in his _Restitution of Decayed Intelligence_ (1634). Verstegan gives "Bunting" as the name of the piper; the town, as Hamelin in Brunswick on the Weser; and the mountain into which the children were led as the Köppenberg.