INGEMANN, BERNHARD SEVERIN (1789-1862), Danish poet and novelist, was born at Torkildstrup, in the island of Falster, on the 28th of May 1789. He was educated at the grammar school at Slagelse, and entered the university of Copenhagen in 1806. His studies were interrupted by the English invasion, and on the first night of the bombardment of the city Ingemann stood with the young poet Blicher on the walls, while the shells whistled past them, and comrades were killed on either side. All his early and unpublished writings were destroyed when the English burned the town. In 1811 he published his first volume of poems, and in 1812 his second, followed in 1813 by a book of lyrics entitled Procne and in 1814 the verse romance, The Black Knights. In 1815 he published two tragedies, Masaniello and Blanca, followed by The Voice in the Desert, The Shepherd of Tolosa, and other romantic plays. After a variety of publications, all very successful, he travelled in 1818 to Italy. At Rome he wrote The Liberation of Tasso, and returned in 1819 to Copenhagen. In 1820 he began to display his real power in a volume of delightful tales. In 1821 his dramatic career closed with the production of an unsuccessful comedy, Magnetism in a Barber’s Shop. In 1822 the poet was nominated lector in Danish language and literature at Sorö College, and he now married. Valdemar the Great and his Men, an historical epic, appeared in 1824. The next few years were occupied with his best and most durable work, his four great national and historical novels of Valdemar Seier, 1826; Erik Menved’s Childhood, 1828; King Erik, 1833; and Prince Otto of Denmark, 1835. He then returned to epic poetry in Queen Margaret, 1836, and in a cycle of romances, Holger Danske, 1837. His later writings consist of religious and sentimental lyrics, epic poems, novels, short stories in prose, and fairy tales. His last publication was The Apple of Gold, 1856. In 1846 Ingemann was nominated director of Sorö College, a post from which he retired in 1849. He died on the 24th of February 1862. Ingemann enjoyed during his lifetime a popularity unapproached even by that of Öhlenschläger. His boundless facility and fecundity, his sentimentality, his religious melancholy, his direct appeal to the domestic affections, gave him instant access to the ear of the public. His novels are better than his poems; of the former the best are those which are directly modelled on the manner of Sir Walter Scott. As a dramatist he outlived his reputation, and his unwieldy epics are now little read.
Ingemann’s works were collected in 41 vols. at Copenhagen (1843-1865). His autobiography was edited by Galskjöt in 1862; his correspondence by V. Heise (1879-1881); and his letters to Grundtvig by S. Grundtvig (1882). See also H. Schwanenflügel, Ingemanns Liv og Digtning (1886); and Georg Brandes, Essays (1889).
INGERSOLL, ROBERT GREEN (1833-1899), American lawyer and lecturer, was born in Dresden, New York, on the 11th of August 1833. His father was a Congregational minister, who removed to Wisconsin in 1843 and to Illinois in 1845. Robert, who had received a good common-school education, was admitted to the bar in 1854, and practised law with success in Illinois. Late in 1861, during the Civil War, he organized a cavalry regiment, of which he was colonel, until captured at Lexington, Tennessee, on the 18th of December 1862, by the Confederate cavalry under General N. B. Forrest. He was paroled, waited in vain to be exchanged, and in June 1863 resigned from the service. He was attorney-general of Illinois in 1867-1869, and in 1876 his speech in the Republican National Convention, naming James G. Blaine for the Presidential candidate, won him a national reputation as a public speaker. As a lawyer he distinguished himself particularly as counsel for the defendants in the “Star-Route Fraud” trials. He was most widely known, however, for his public lectures attacking the Bible, and his anti-Christian views were an obstacle to his political advancement. Ingersoll was an eloquent rhetorician rather than a logical reasoner. He died at Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., on the 21st of July 1899.
His principal lectures and speeches were published under the titles: The Gods and Other Lectures (1876); Some Mistakes of Moses (1879); Prose Poems (1884); Great Speeches (1887). His lectures, entitled “The Bible,” “Ghosts,” and “Foundations of Faith,” attracted particular attention. His complete works were published in 12 vols. in New York in 1900.
INGERSOLL, a town and port of entry of Oxford county, Ontario, Canada, 19 m. E. of London, on the river Thames and the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific railways. Pop. (1901) 4572. The principal manufactures are agricultural implements, furniture, pianos and screws. There is a large export trade in cheese and farm produce.
INGHAM, CHARLES CROMWELL (1796-1863), American artist, was born in Dublin, Ireland. He was a pupil of the Dublin Academy, emigrated to the United States at the age of twenty-one, and immediately became identified with the art life of that country, being one of the founders of the National Academy of New York in 1826 and its vice-president from 1845 to 1850. He painted portraits of the reigning beauties of New York and acquired considerable reputation, continuing to practise his profession until his death, in New York, on the 10th of December 1863.