The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1885-09-26
S'"a'es An literature and / Geographic.
WIKI Er:as cale::;,1c :goa 2:az5a.i Aa:h;.:.
An Original WING Feature.
JEAN INGELOW.


tionably fairer Islands of modern rurality
and versiliers of both sexes whose moral
characters remain far lesser objects of
mystery than the critics have charged
agains; the exquisite Lyrist of those past
times. We need not pause at the portals
of those years, between the time of the
first Sappho until now, to contemplate
the various sisters who have therein
sprung up to claim relationship. They
have all been noble representatives of the
peculiar family, but none have loaned to
British poetry or the general literature
of progressive period, or have entered
clam for recognition upon that period,
with more deserving attributes or con
fessedly popuIor merits than Jean lnge-
low; coming forth, as she did, at the time
her more illustrious sister f. Il. Browning
had lain down the Sceptre, and when the
appetites of English songlovers craved
almost hopelessly some fresh lyrical menu.
some stirring Regime of song and scnti-
ment unhampered by the skirts of de-
parted methods and method builders, her
songs sprang up "suddenly and tunefnlly
as sky larks, with blitheness long un-
known, and in their idyllic underilights
moved with the tenderest currents Of hu-
man life
The analytic microscopic when he
secures such specimen as Jean lnge-
low within the focus of his glass cannot
be content with the mere outward and
visible causes of the phenomena; hut
even the most close and definite inward
search here reveals no hidden principles
or systems other than heart so large as
to contain, besides its hopeful npieach-
ings towards the All-Iniinite, compassion
and sympathics for the human misery
that stares with its wild white face of
WEAKNESS through all the fuor windows
of the world. The genius OF Jean lnge-
low is at once purely original, yet not so
fully bound up as not to convince one
that its somc lies partly in the beautiful
Lincolnshire distr ct where she was born
fifty-tive years ago, and partly in the
traffic she has had with the uncomlorta-
BILE side of the world. The American
contemporaries of Jean lngelow Alice
and Phoebe Cary. Mrs. Sigourney, Celia
Thaxter, Adelaide ID. T. Whitney, Lucy
Larcom, and Helen Jackson, need scowl
81 p,ooahnS that N n va
been made from time to time in her favor.
IL each particular vein they pursue just
praise is due the execution, wonderful
indeed as it is and most always teEderly
beautiful, yet in her field no other feet
have trodden with such effective purpose;
fact adequate, of course, and necessary
to establish ali that is claimed for her
originality, but fact as willingly granted
in the case of any other worthy claimant,
either of the Felicia llemans' or Edith
Thomas schools. The genius i'll her case
however, is not limited to original quail
ties in style or method alone, but trans
cending these supreme virtues she touches
the heights of that other loitier attribute
orig inality of spirit and fire in the soul
of eloquence and heart Of exqulsit power
and tenderness that form tho conceptive
elements of her diction. 1t is certainly
true, as Mr.. Stedman has demanded, that
''her faults are those common to her sex,
too rapid composition and diffuseness
that has already lessened Interpolation. ="
But, thankfully be it said, the richer
efforts of her fine moments for which she
is most extensively read and wherein
dwells her fame. viz: High Tide,
"Winstanly.' Songs of Seven and
''The Long White Seam are sufficient
to veil the children of an ahortlve peri
from the critical Sagacity of everyday
readers.
Before bringing our brief ''iicld re
close We feel tempted to discuss the OBJ
viously careless statement above quoted
from Mr. Stedman's essay, in reference
to the common fault among professional
members of Miss Ingelow' 5 sex. Surely,
so keen an eye as this prominent critic
has shown himself to possess, during his
lengthy career of analytic research into
the pages of past and present times has
found his own sex, frequently as the sis
tiers of Ingelow, pursuing that common
fault quite often, alas, in general and
not spasmodic instances. To what invis-
ibe circumstance its cause is chargeable
a critic with the perseverance of Diog
enes, and little more illumination than
that old Martyr possess ed, will some day
win fame by discovering 1t is, however,
a fault that, safely to be said, never
reached such wide existence until the
CHEEKY countenanccs of Dean Swift and
Culeridge Addison. and the members of
his school laid down their abusing and
much abused pens and wandered out of
the gates Of Life; only to look back in as
Constituent during these years of there
Paradisical probation IL on the marvel
louS achievements of the swift pcncillcd
RhymesterS of this late century-meu
as well as women whose impctunuS am
bilious to achieve quantity leave the
quality burdencd with Mr. Stcdman's
common fault" Whatever of the i'm
perfect clings about Jean fgclow's work
critics are genei ously licensed 10 spread
forth where the brightest beams may
strike it. Such revelations of error and
mistake are as well for he: servants, the
public who read, as for the tuneful Lyrist
who writes. But they are small, SO very
small and altogether bearable that, long
as her sweetly smiling face with its shrine
of silvery locks sees notes and harmonieS
in the two classes of nature-human and
nanimate-that surround her, to fit the
tumbling melodies in her brain, may we
hope to hear her exquisite alto scill pre-
vading the aisles o; that great Temple
dedicate to the British Muse; softening
the tragic tintings of its loftier solemn
receSses with its subdued and mellow
glow, its tender feeling and pIthoI, is
hope and sincerity. I'M.
FROM ''DIVIDED."
x : Sing Oh. we sing in the glorius weather
Till one steps over the tiny strand,
So narrow, in Sooth, that still together
On either brink we 80 hand III hand.
He prays, "rome over"-I may not follow;
| cry, ''E .turn''-but he cannot come:
We speak, we laugh, bat with voices hollow:
Our hands are hanging, our hearts are
nImb.
FROM "IIOSOES"
4 Fair world! these puzzled souls of ours
grow weak
With beating their bruised wings against
the rim
That bounds thcir utmost flying, when they