BAILLIE, JOANNA. This very amiable and accomplished lady was born at Bothwell, on the banks of the Clyde, in 1762. A niece of William and John Hunter, and a sister of Dr. Matthew Baillie, she shared the talents of this distinguished family, and increased its honours by a pure and elevated poetry, which has added another wreath to the laurels of her country. She appears early to have cultivated her poetic taste, but did not come before the public as a poet until 1798, when she produced a volume of Plays on the Passions, which at once established her powers in delineating character, and exhibited originality of invention. The public was not slow in acknowledging her genius, and hailed with satisfaction the appearance of a second volume, on the same plan, in 1802.
Though the design of each play was chiefly to illustrate a single motive of action, Miss Baillie showed tact in giving variety to her compositions, and especially excelled in the delicate discrimination of the peculiarities of female characters. Although her plays were intended rather for the closet than the stage, the enthusiastic admiration of the two greatest tragedians of our age, Mrs. Siddons and John Kemble, introduced De Montfort successfully on the English stage; and another of her plays, The Family Legend, was a favourite piece in the theatre of Edinburgh, where it was introduced by a prologue by Walter Scott, and followed by
an epilogue by Mackenzie, the author of The Man of Feeling. The subjects of her plays are not historical, but are ideal combinations of character, given with a dignity and force that stamp them as the conceptions of a pure and vigorous mind. Though of unostentatious and retiring habits, her friendship was eagerly sought and cultivated by some of the most distinguished literary characters of the age; and Scott has thus happily expressed his admiration of Joanna Baillie:—
"When she the bold enchantress came
With fearless hand and heart on flame,
From the pale willow snatch'd the treasure,
And swept it with a kindred measure;
Till Avon's swans, while rung the grove
With Montfort's hate, and Basil's love,
Awakening at the inspired strain,
Deem'd their own Shakespeare liv'd again."
Her principal productions are De Montfort, The Family Legend, Count Basil, Henriquez, and Separation. We have already stated the favourable circumstances that introduced the first two on the stage; the last two have also since been acted. Another volume containing her minor poems, in which are some good specimens of humorous song, showing her talent for lighter compositions, has more lately been given to the public, and her works have very recently been published in one volume by Messrs. Longman & Co.
Miss Baillie's modest retreat at Hampstead was long a favourite resort of those individuals whom she honoured with her friendship; and till within a short period of her death, she was able to receive her friends, and even to correspond with a select few. There this accomplished and estimable woman closed her long career, on the 23d of February 1851.