SOURCE: “Jean Ingelow,” in The Fortnightly Review, Vol. 71, No. 287, March 1, 1899, pp. 486-99.

In the following essay, Birchenough offers an enthusiastic review of Ingelow's major works, focusing on Ingelow's love of nature and natural landscapes, the simplicity and sensitivity of her writings, and the light-heartedness of her family stories.

In the summer of 1897, two remarkable women writers slipped away, quietly, and with as little observation as either would have desired, barely noticed indeed during the absorbing excitements of the Jubilee. The public had delighted to honour each in her day, but it had already passed into the stage of half-forgetting, for it has much to do in following after all the new gods of the last few years.

Yet Mrs. Oliphant and Jean Ingelow have never really faded out before all the newer reputations, as is the fate of those who only satisfy a momentary need, or a passing...