Joanna Baillie, the daughter of a Scotch clergyman, was born at Bothwell, in Lanarkshire, in 1762. When she was about six years old, her father exchanged the Bothwell Kirk for that of Hamilton. At ten she was sent to boarding-school in Glasgow; and, her father having been appointed to a professorship in Glasgow University, when Joanna was fifteen the family removed to that city. Two years later her father died, and the Baillies left Glasgow for Long Calderwood, in the Middle Ward of Lanarkshire. In 1784, Joanna’s brother, Dr. Matthew Baillie, took his mother and sisters to live in London. In 1790, Joanna published anonymously a volume of miscellaneous poems; and in 1798, also anonymously, the first volume of “Plays on the Passions.” In 1802, a second, and in 1812, a third volume appeared. Meanwhile Miss Baillie had published, in 1804, a volume of “Miscellaneous Dramas;” and in 1810 a tragedy, “The Family Legend,” was brought out at the Edinburgh Theatre. It was played fourteen nights; and in 1814 was again acted in London. In 1826 appeared “The Martyr,” a tragedy, and in 1836 three more volumes of plays. In 1831 Miss Baillie published “A View of the General Tenor of the New Testament regarding the Nature and Dignity of Jesus Christ.” She was also the author of “Metrical Legends of Exalted Characters.” In 1801, Joanna, her mother, and her sister, Agnes, had established themselves at Hampstead, where Mrs. Baillie died in 1806. The sisters more than once revisited Scotland. Joanna “passed away without suffering” on the 23rd of February, 1851.

Personal

  We met Miss Joanna Baillie, and accompanied her home. She is small in figure, and her gait is mean and shuffling, but her manners are those of a well-bred woman. She has none of the unpleasant airs too common to literary ladies. Her conversation is sensible. She possesses apparently considerable information, is prompt without being forward, and has a fixed judgment of her own, without any disposition to force it on others. Wordsworth said of her with warmth: “If I had to present anyone to a foreigner as a model of an English gentlewoman, it would be Joanna Baillie.”

  She wore a delicate lavender satin bonnet; and Mrs. J— says she is fond of dress, and knows what every one has on. Her taste is certainly exquisite in dress…. I more than ever admired the harmony of expression and tint, the silver hair and silvery gray eye, the pale skin, and the look which speaks of a mind that has had much communing with high imagination, though such intercourse is only perceptible now by the absence of everything which that lofty spirit would not set his seal upon…. Age has slackened the active part of genius, and yet is in some sort a substitute for it. There is a declining of mental exercitation. She has had enough of that; and now for a calm decline, and thoughts of Heaven.

  We made a most delightful visit to Miss Joanna Baillie…. She talked of Scott with a tender enthusiasm that was contagious, and of Lockhart with a kindness that is uncommon when coupled with his name, and which seemed only characteristic of her benevolence. It is very rare that old age, or, indeed, any age, is found so winning or agreeable. I do not wonder that Scott, in his letters, treats her with more deference, and writes to her with more care and beauty, than to any other of his correspondents, however high or titled.

  She had enjoyed a fame almost without parallel, and had outlived it. She had been told every day for years, through every possible channel, that she was second only to Shakspere,—if second; and then she had seen her works drop out of notice so that, of the generation who grew up before her eyes, not one in a thousand had read a line of her plays:—yet was her serenity never disturbed, nor her merry humour in the least dimmed. I have never lost the impression of the trying circumstances of my first interview with her, nor of the grace, simplicity and sweeetness with which she bore them. She was old; and she declined dinner-parties; but she wished to meet me,… and therefore she came to Miss Berry’s to tea, one day when I was dining there. Miss Berry, her contemporary, put her feelings, it seemed to me, to a most unwarrantable trial, by describing to me, as we three sat together, the celebrity of the “Plays on the Passions” in their day. She told me how she found on her table, on her return from a ball, a volume of plays; and how she kneeled on a chair to look at it, and how she read on till the servant opened the shutters, and let in the daylight of a winter morning. She told me how all the world raved about the plays; and she held on so long that I was in pain for the noble creature to whom it must have been irksome on the one hand to hear her own praises and fame so dwelt upon, and, on the other, to feel that we all knew how long that had been quite over. But, when I looked up at her sweet face, with its composed smile amidst the becoming mob cap, I saw that she was above pain of either kind.

  She was past fifty when I first saw her, and appeared like an old lady to me, then in my teens. She dressed like an aged person, and with scrupulous neatness. She lived with a sister who looked older still, because she had not the vivacity of Joanna, and was only distinguished for the amiability with which she bore being outshone by her more gifted relative. Miss Baillie, according to the English custom, took the title of Mrs. Joanna Baillie, on passing her fiftieth birthday. She gave the prettiest and the pleasantest dinners, and presided at them with peculiar grace and tact, always attentive to the wants of her guests…. She took such pleasure in writing poetry, and especially in her “Plays on the Passions,” that she said, “If no one ever read them, I should find my happiness in writing them.” Though she was young when she left her native land, she never lost her Scotch accent. I thought it made her conversation only the more piquant. She was full of anecdotes and curious facts about remarkable people. I only recollect her telling one of Lord Byron being obliged, by politeness, to escort her and her sister to the opera, and her perceiving that he was provoked beyond measure at being there with them, and that he made faces as he sat behind them.

  Joanna Baillie lived many years at Hampstead, in Bolton House, on Windmill Hill, a little below the Clock House. Perhaps no person of literary distinction ever led a more secluded and unambitious life so near the metropolis. In the society of her sister, Miss Agnes Baillie, she seemed to care but little whether the world forgot her or not. But of this forgetfulness there was no danger. Every man of pre-eminent genius delighted to do her honor. The last time I saw the poet Rogers he was returning from a call on Joanna Baillie.

  Of Joanna Baillie too I saw much both as a friend and patient. Her gentle simplicity, with a Scotch tinge colouring it to the end of life, won the admiration even of those who knew nothing of her power of dramatic poetry. It was pleasant to visit her in the quiet house at Hampstead, in which she lived with her sister Agnes. She reached, I think, her ninety-second year. Agnes lived to a hundred.

  She was the most sensible of wilful geniuses; the most retiring of “wise” women; the most maidenly of experienced elderly ladies; the most tenderly attached of daughters and sisters; one of the meekest and most modest of Christians. Joanna Baillie’s was a noble soul. She had a great man’s grand guilelessness, rather than a woman’s minute and subtle powers of sympathy; a man’s shy but unstinted kindness and forbearance, rather than a woman’s eager but measured cordiality and softness; a man’s modesty in full combination with a woman’s delicacy; and, as if to prove her sex beyond mistake, she had, after all, more than the usual share of a woman’s tenacity and headstrongness, when the fit was upon her…. Joanna appeared to her companions a capable young woman, with much decision of character, like her mother. She was shy amongst strangers, but sufficiently frank to her friends; and in the midst of her seriousness, she was the merriest soul when the fit took her. She had quietly written some clever Scotch songs, most of them adaptations from old ditties. These were already sung with glee around many a rustic hearth and at many a homely supper-table…. Joanna was not handsome…. Joanna was below the middle height, and had the large, statuesque features which suit better with a stately figure. Years lent these features dignity rather than robbed them of grace. There is no word of her youthful bloom. She wore her hair for many years simply divided and braided across her forehead; but the hair must have grown low on it from the first, and, whether in a crop, or in braids, must have nearly concealed the expansive brow, which thus lent no relief to the dark gauntness of the face…. The brows were firmly arched. Her mouth was wide, and expressed benevolence. Her chin was clearly moulded, and slightly projecting.

  Her gentle and lovely life had no incident in it. She was one of those maiden princesses about whom there always breathes a soft and exquisite perfume, too delicate for common appreciation, of that reserved and high virginity, which, never reaching to any second chapter of life, involves an endless youth.

  Not handsome, below the middle height, with large square features; her hair grew low down on her capacious forehead, her grey eyes were large and thoughtful, though sometimes humorous, her mouth was wide, and her chin slightly projecting. Altogether, though her face had little beauty, it was frank and sensible.

General

  Do you remember my speaking to you in high terms of a series of plays upon the passions of the human mind, which had been sent to me last winter by the author? I talked to everybody else in the same terms of them at the time, anxiously enquiring for the author; but nobody knew them, nobody cared for them, nobody would listen to me; and at last I unwillingly held my tongue, for fear it should be supposed that I thought highly of them only because they had been sent to me. This winter the first question upon everybody’s lips is, “Have you read the series of plays?” Everybody talks in the raptures (I always thought they deserved) of the tragedies and of the introduction as of a new and admirable piece of criticism. Sir G. Beaumont, who was with us yesterday morning, says he never expected to see such tragedies in his days; and C. Fox, to whom he had sent them, is in such raptures with them, that he has written a critique of 5 pages upon the subject to Sir George.

  Upon the whole, then, we are pretty decidedly of opinion, that Miss Baillie’s plan of composing separate plays upon the passions, is, in so far as it is at all new or original, in all respects extremely injudicious; and we have been induced to express this opinion more fully and strongly, from the anxiety that we feel to deliver her pleasing and powerful genius from the trammels that have been imposed upon it by this unfortunate system. It is paying no great compliment, perhaps, to her talents, to say, that they are superior to those of any of her contemporaries among the English writers of tragedy; and that, with proper management, they bid fair to produce something that posterity will not allow to be forgotten…. We think there is no want of genius in this book, although there are many errors of judgment; and are persuaded, that if Miss Baillie will relinquish her plan of producing twin dramas on each of the passions, and consent to write tragedies, without any deeper design than that of interesting her readers, we shall soon have the satisfaction of addressing her with more unqualified praise, than we have yet bestowed upon any poetical adventurer.

  I hope Miss Baillie’s thistle will flourish longer than those perishable wreaths which have hitherto bound the brows of female genius. Will you think me extremely national when I remark that, though the Scottish muse never wore the tragic stole until after the Union, no tragedy written since that period has kept possession of the stage but those of Caledonian origin,—Home’s “Douglas,” Thomson’s “Sigismunda,” and Miss Baillie’s Tragedies, which do not seem born to die.

  Her tragedies and comedies, one of each to illustrate each of the passions, separately, from the rest, are heresies in the dramatic art. She is a Unitarian in poetry. With her the passions are, like the French republic, one and indivisible: they are not so in nature, or in Shakspeare. Mr. Southey has, I believe, somewhere expressed an opinion that the Basil of Miss Baillie is superior to Romeo and Juliet. I shall not stay to contradict him. On the other hand, I prefer her De Montfort, which was condemned on the stage, to some later tragedies, which have been more fortunate—to the Remorse, Bertram, and lastly, Fazio.

  I well remember when her plays upon the “Passions” first came out, with a metaphysical preface. All the world wondered and stared at me, who pronounced them the work of a woman, although the remark was made everyday and everywhere that it was a masculine performance. No sooner, however, did an unknown girl own the work, than the value so fell, her booksellers complained they could not get themselves paid for what they did, nor did their merits ever again swell the throat of public applause.

  She has created tragedies which Sophocles—or Euripides—nay, even Æschylus himself, might have feared, in competition for the crown. She is our Tragic Queen; but she belongs to all places as to all times; and Sir Walter truly said—let them who dare deny it—that he saw her Genius in a sister shape sailing by the side of the Swan of Avon. Yet Joanna loves to pace the pastoral mead; and then we are made to think of the tender dawn, the clear noon, and the bright meridian of her life, passed among the tall cliffs of the silver Calder, and in the lonesome heart of the dark Strathaven Muirs.

  She has unfortunately written on a theory; for everybody works on a theory in this philosophic age. The principal purpose of her’s, was to make each play subservient to the development of some one particular passion. In this way, she excluded herself from the legitimate range of character, which belongs to the drama; nor, indeed, was it possible, with any degree of skill, to adhere to her plan, since the rôles of the subordinate agents must often be at variance, and obviously require a different play of passion from that of the principal character.

  If Joanna Baillie had known the stage practically, she would never have attached the importance she does to the development of single passions in single tragedies; and she would have invented more stirring incidents to justify the passion of her characters, and to give them that air of fatality which, though peculiarly predominant in the Greek drama, will also be found, to a certain extent, in all successful tragedies. Instead of this, she contrives to make all the passions of her main characters proceed from the wilful natures of the beings themselves. Their feelings are not precipitated by circumstances, like a stream down a declivity, that leaps from rock to rock; but, for want of incident, they seem often like water on a level, without a propelling impulse.

  Read Joanna Baillie’s play of “Basil,” which I think can scarcely be made pathetic enough for representation; there is a stiffness in her style, a want of appropriateness and peculiarity of expression distinguishing each person, that I cannot overcome in reading her plays; it is a sort of brocaded style, a thick kind of silk that has no fall or play—it is not the flexibility of nature.

  Joanna Baillie is, as you say, “a glorious old lady.” She has a glorious mind. It is impossible for you to admire her more than I do; but one thing I must remark, you will see now the whole world of criticism exalt her to the skies, and not on the strength of her own noble intellect, but at the expense of every other woman who has written tragedy. It is the fashion of modern criticism: the idol of the day must be the head of a pyramid, erected on other men’s fame…. I never deny the wonderful excellence of Joanna Baillie, but no one shall persuade me that “Rienzi” is not as good as any drama by her.

  The most remarkable of her works are her “Plays of the Passions,” a series in which each passion is made the subject of a tragedy and a comedy. In the comedies she failed completely; they are pointless tales in dialogue. Her tragedies, however, have great merit, though possessing a singular quality for works of such an aim, in being without the earnestness and abruptness of actual and powerful feeling. By refinement and elaboration she makes the passions sentiments. She fears to distract attention by multiplying incidents; her catastrophes are approached by the most gentle gradations; her dramas are therefore slow in action and deficient in interest. Her characters possess little individuality; they are mere generalizations of intellectual attributes, theories personified.

  The powerful dramatic writer, the graceful and witty lyrist.

  The first woman who won high and undisputed honors in the highest class of English poetry…. Her tragedies have a boldness and grasp of mind, a firmness of hand, and a resonance of cadence, that scarcely seem within the reach of a female writer; while the tenderness and sweetness of her heroines—the grace of the love-scenes—and the trembling outgushings of sensibility, as in “Orra,” for instance, in the fine tragedy on Fear—would seem exclusively feminine, if we did not know that a true dramatist—as Shakspeare or Fletcher—has the wonderful power of throwing himself, mind and body, into the character that he portrays. That Mrs. Joanna is a true dramatist, as well as a great poet, I, for one, can never doubt, although it has been the fashion to say that her plays do not act.

  Her knowledge of the human heart, of its wide range for good or evil, of its multifarious, changeful, and wayward nature, was great, and her power of portraying character has rarely been excelled. Her female portraits are especially beautiful, and possess an unusual degree of elevation and purity. But though distinguished chiefly for her dramatic writings, her lyric and miscellaneous poetry takes a very high rank among similar productions of the present century. To great simplicity and womanly tenderness of feeling, she unites at times a conciseness and vigor of expression which are not often surpassed.

  Unquestionably she was a great writer, as strong as a man, but with all the delicate purity and sweetness, the instinctive quickness and fine sensibility, of a woman.

  Among the works of the numerous minor poets, the tragedies of Joanna Baillie, with all their faults as plays, are noble additions to the literature, and the closest approach made in recent times to the merit of the old English drama.

  Miss Joanna Baillie was a great friend of Mrs. Siddons’s, and wrote expressly for her the part of Jane de Montfort, in her play of “De Montfort.”… The peculiar plan upon which she wrote her fine plays, making each of them illustrate a single passion, was in a great measure the cause of their unfitness for the stage. “De Montfort,” which has always been considered the most dramatic of them, had only a very partial success, in spite of its very great poetical merit and considerable power of passion, and the favorable circumstance that the two principal characters in it were represented by the eminent actors for whom the authoress originally designed them. In fact, though Joanna Baillie selected and preferred the dramatic form for her poetical compositions, they are wanting in the real dramatic element, resemblance to life and human nature, and are infinitely finer as poems than plays.

  Joanna Baillie’s dramas are “nice” and rather dull; now and then she can write a song with the ease and sweetness that suggest Shakespearian echoes. But Scott’s judgment was obviously blinded by his just and warm regard for Joanna Baillie herself.

  In reading Joanna Baillie’s poetry we find her to possess a quickness of observation that nearly supplies the place of insight; a strongly moralised temperament delighting in natural things; a vigorous, simple style. These are not especially dramatic qualities, and although she won her reputation through her plays, the poetry by which she is remembered is chiefly of a pastoral kind…. Few women possess the faculty of construction, and Joanna Baillie was not one of these; nor had she qualities rare enough to cover the sins of a wandering story. Even in the revelation of a passion she is more occupied with the moral to be inferred than with the feeling itself, and few of her dramatis personæ are more than the means to bring the moral to its conclusion…. Her country songs, written in the language of her early home, have the best qualities of Scottish national poetry; their simplicity, their cautious humour, endeared them at once to the national heart; they have the shrewdness and the freshness of the morning airs, the homeliness of unsophisticated feeling. Such songs as “Woo’d and Married and a’,” “The weary pund o’ Tow,” “My Nanny O,” and the lovely trysting song beginning “The gowan glitters on the sward,” are among the treasures of Scottish minstrelsy.

  That she was superior to many men of her time is no reason for claiming for her an approach to the circle of the greatest: and to name her with Wordsworth or with Coleridge would be folly, although there is now and then a Shakspearian melody in her blank verse which pleased the general ear more than the stronger strain of the “Excursion,” and stood no unfavorable comparison with the diction of Coleridge’s dramas.

  As a song-writer, Joanna Baillie is rarely impassioned, but she is always hearty and sympathetic. Her humour is full-flavoured, and her pathos is natural if it is not deep.

  It will always be a delightful contemplation to the student of literary history, that the Scottish lady who made her ideal figures tread the stage with all the grace of a Sophocles and the majesty of a Corneille, could at the same time give utterance to the kindliest and gentlest of human feelings, with all the sly humour and shrewd merriment that belong to a masterpiece of Scottish song. In this double form of presentation she, like Burns and Scott, was bilingual in the noblest sense: while she held converse on an equal platform with the first masters of the noble English tongue, she could at the same time address the meanest peasant of her native land in the musical and expressive speech which they had imbibed with their mother’s milk; and verily she has had her reward. Her plays will win the admiration of the few; her songs warm the hearts of the many.

  She out-distances Hannah More inasmuch as her works, if somewhat ponderous, are yet interesting and full of dramatic feeling, and their occasional harshness is refreshing after the frequent mawkish commonplaces of her predecessors.

  Heartiness is one of the gifts most essential to a song-writer. Joanna Baillie had the gift. Of all English women-poets, she speaks in accents least easily distinguishable from a man’s. The songs “Woo’d and Married an’ a’,” and “Saw ye Johnny comin’” (the best of them all), and “Fy let us a’ to the Wedding,” were, in her own phrase, “Auld Songs new Buskit.” But she made them her own—even as Burns made so many an old ditty his own—by skilful verbal changes, by refining their tone without lessening their spontaneity and pith. Her fame has suffered a sad eclipse since Sir Walter deemed her “the immortal Joanna,” and paid high tribute to her in the introduction to the third canto of “Marmion.” But while her dramas are never to be revived and seldom, very seldom to be read, her vigorous, bracing, hearty lyrical work endures, and will endure.

  Her “natural” language is often as insipid as Wordsworth’s, but not so crude, her passion has an air of being rather forced upon her characters in compliance with her program than elicited from their circumstances. She had talent, grace, eloquence; and generous fellow-countrymen, like Scott and Wilson, hailed a new Shakespeare in “our Joanna,” while more cautious ones, like Jeffrey and Campbell, pointed out her lack of the fundamental nerve and sinew of tragedy.

  She had some poetic faculty; but her “Plays on the Passions” (1768 and later) and others, though admired at the time, and sometimes acted, are neither great dramas nor great literature, the author never seeming quite to know whether she is writing for the theatre or the study, and not producing the best things for either.