[…] There is scarcely a form of poetical composition in which she has not made
experiment; and there is none in which she has not very happily succeeded. Her
defects are chiefly negative and by no means numerous. Her versification is
sometimes exceedingly good, but more frequently feeble through the use of harsh
consonants, and such words as "thou'dst" for
"thou wouldst," with other unnecessary contractions,
inversions, and obsolete expressions. Her imagery is often mixed; -- indeed it
is rarely otherwise. The epigrammatism of her conclusions gives to her poems, as
wholes, the air of being more skillfully constructed than they really are. On
the other hand, we look in vain throughout her works for an offence against the
finer taste, or against decorum -- for a low thought or a platitude. A happy
refinement -- an instinct of the pure and delicate -- is one of her most
noticeable excellences. She may be properly commended, too, for originality of
poetic invention, whether in the conception of a theme or in the manner of
treating it. Consequences of this trait, are her point and piquancy. Fancy and
naivete appear in all she writes. Regarding the loftier merits,
I am forced to speak of her in more measured terms. She has occasional passages
of true imagination -- but scarcely the glowing, vigorous, and
sustained ideality of Mrs. Maria Brooks -- or even, in general, the
less ethereal elevation of Mrs. Welby. In that indescribable something, however,
which, for want of a more definite term, we are accustomed to call
"grace" -- that charm so magical, because at once so shadowy
and so potent -- that Will o' the Wisp which, in its
supreme development, may be said to involve nearly all
that is valuable in poetry -- she has, unquestionably, no rival among her
country women. […]