Hameln

2 town and formerly a fortre of Hanover, Pru ia, on the Weser; 25 miles S. W. of Hanover. It presents a medieval appearance, having many houses and buildings surviving from the Gothic and Renai ance periods of architecture. With this town is connected the well-known legend of the Piper (or Rat catcher) of Hameln, who in 1284 freed the town from rats through the mystic charm of his pipe; but, when the people refused to pay him the promised reward, he exercised the power of his music on the children of the place, and drew them away into the heart of an adjoining hill, which opened to receive them, and through which he led them to Transylvania. The story is familiar from Browning’s, “Pied Piper of Hamelin.” Hamerling, Robert, an Austrian poet; born in Kirchberg-am-Walde, March 24, 1830. He gained influential patronage by poems published at 20, and became a lecturer at the University of Trieste. He produced poems, plays, and romances, which rank him AMON the first poets of “the new time,”’ for thought, euphony, and technique. His greatest. work is “ Ahasnerus in Rome” (1866), a vivid epic »f Nero’s time and the dying paganism. He died in Gratz, July 18, 1889.