LONDON & TORONTO
PUBLISHED BY J·M·DENT
& SONS Ltd & IN NEW YORK
BY E·P·DUTTON & CO
First Issue of this Edition 1912
Reprinted 1919
THE
Temple Press Letchworth
ENGLAND
INTRODUCTION
Jean Ingelow may be said to have begun her study of the art of writing child-rhymes and the tales that are akin to them under Jane and Ann Taylor. A friendship had sprung up between the families at Walton-on-the-Naze in Essex, where the Ingelow youngsters used to stay; and “Greedy Dick” and “Mrs. Duck, the notorious glutton,” were among their favourite characters. In her first book, however, Jean Ingelow showed that she had a note and a child-fantasy of her own. They are seen in her fairy-ballad of Mimie and of the forest where the child-fairy lived:
“When the clouded sun goes in—
Waiting for the thunder,
We can hear their revel din
The moss’d greensward under.
“And I tell you, all the birds
On the branches singing