Browning thus explains the origin of the poem: "There is no sort of
historical foundation about _Good News from Ghent_. I wrote it
under the bulwark of a vessel off the African coast, after I had been
at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the
back of a certain good horse 'York,' then in my stable, at home." It
would require a skilful imagination to create a set of circumstances
which could give any other plausible reason for the ride to "save Aix
from her fate."