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BAILLIE, JOANNA. 



BAILLIE, JOANNA. 



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than the forms it prescribed. His speech at this meeting so delighted 

 his audience that he was urged to send it to the preas, and from this 

 time he took his place as one of the chief managers and leaders of 

 the Presbyterian and anti-court party. 



At the celebrated General Assembly which met at Glasgow on the 

 21st of November, 1638, Baillie, who was cue of the members for 

 the presbytery of Irvine, manifested so much of his original modera- 

 tion, that he stood alone in refusing to concur in the vote declaring 

 episcopacy to have been always abjured by the Scottish Church : he 

 proposed that it should be declared to be " removed now, but never 

 before abjured." The prevailing party however were aware of his 

 value, and he was soon entirely gained over. When arms were taken 

 up he appeared in the camp at Dunse Law, in the beginning of June 

 1 639, in quality of preacher to a division of the troops. In the course 

 of the same month however a pacification was arranged at Berwick. 

 In April 1640 Baillie published what may be considered to have been 

 an extension of his speech at the meeting of Supplicants, in a large 

 quarto pamphlet at Edinburgh, under the title of ' Ain-oicaTo/cpurir : the 

 Canterburians' Self-Conviction ; or, An Evident Demonstration of the 

 Avowed Arminianism, Popery, and Tyranny of that Faction, by their 

 >nfession8,' &c. In tlie following October, when the Scotch had 

 airain taken arm?, he proceeded, on the invitation of the earls of Kothes, 

 Montrose, and Argyle, to the council of war at Newcastle, taking with 

 him a number of copies of his book ; and here he was nominated one 

 of the four clerical commissioners who were deputed with nine laymen 

 to procf d to London, under the protection of the great seal, to nego- 

 ciate a treaty with the king. He reached London on the 16th of 

 November, and remained there till the beginning of June 1641, having 

 during his residence witnessed the trial of Strafford an I other remark- 

 able occurrences, of which his letters contain very full accounts. In 

 one of his letters written during Strafford's trial he writes, in a some- 

 what sanguine as well as sanguinary strain, "When we get his head, 

 then all things will run on smooth." In June 1642 Baillie was 

 appointed joint professor of divinity in the university of Glasgow, but 

 immediately after tlii.s he was again dispatched to England as one of 

 the five clerical commissioners from the General Assembly to the 

 Westminster Assembly of Divines. He reached London on the 18th 

 of November, and he did not leave till the 6th of January 1645. He 

 was sent back again before the end of March, when, as he was pro- 

 ceeding by sea, the ship was driven towards the coast of Holland, and 

 forced to run up the Maas, which gave Baillie an opportunity of 

 spending a few days at Middelburg and Rotterdam. He remained in 

 London on this his last visit till December 1646, employing every 

 moment that was not taken up in attending the Assembly of Divines 

 in preaching and in writing sermons, pamphlets, and letters to his 

 friend--* in Scotland and elsewhere. He now resumed his duties as pro- 

 fessor of divinity, continuing also however to take an active part in 

 public proceedings. After the execution of the king he was one of 

 two clergymen sent over to the Hague in March 1649, with the com- 

 missioners of the Scottish estates (or parliament), to enter into nego- 

 ciations with Charles II. Upon this mission he was absent till July, 

 and during that interval he composed and published at Delft an 

 answer to a pamphlet against Presbyterianism by Bishop Bramhall. 

 When Cromwell advanced upon Glasgow in October 1650, after the 

 battle of Duubar, Baillie fled to the Isle of Cumray with Lady Mont- 

 gomery, but left, he tells us, all his family and goods to Cromwell's 

 courtesy, "which,'' he adds, "indeed was great; for he took such a 

 course with his soldiers that they did less displeasure at Glasgow nor 

 [than] if they had been at London, though Mr. Zachary Boyd railed 

 on them all to their very face in the High Church." Under the new 

 government he was in January 1651 appointed first professor of 

 divinity on the removal of his colleague to a chair at Edinburgh ; and 

 bortly after the restoration he was, in January 1661, promoted to 

 the office of principal of the university. About the end of August 

 1662 he died, in the sixty-first year of his age. He had been twice 

 married, and had eight children, of whom only one was by his second 

 wife. 



Of Baillie' s works the most important, besides those already men- 

 tioned, are his ' Dissuasive from the Errors of the Time,' 4to, London, 

 1645; his ' Anabaptism, the True Fountain of Independency, Brown- 

 im, Antinomy, Familism," &c. (a Second Part of the Dissuasive), 4to, 

 London, 1647 ; his ' Appendix Practica ad Joannis Buxtorfii Epitomen 

 Grammatical Hebrase,' 8vo, Edinburgh, 1653 ; and his ' Operis Historic! 

 et Chronologic! Libri Duo,' folio, Amsterdam, 1663, and Basil, 1669. 

 He also published several sermons and other short tracts. But of all 

 the produce of his pen by far the most interesting part consists of his 

 ' Letters," written to various friends, and especially to his relation, the 

 Rev. Mr. William Spang, minister of the Scottish church at Campvere, 

 and afterwards of the English congregation at Middelburg in Zeeland, 

 which extend, with inconsiderable interruptions, from 1637 to within 

 a few months of the writer's death, and are among the most valuable 

 memorials of that important period of our national history. An edition 

 of the ' Letters' appeared in Edinburgh in 1775, but this was only a 

 selection, and not carefully edited. A complete edition was produced 

 iindur the care of David Laing, Esq., in 3 vols. crown 8vo, Edinburgh, 

 1841-42, with annotations, a life of Baillie (to which we have been in- 

 debted for the materials of this notice), and other illustrative matter. 



BAILLIE, JOANNA, was born at the manse at Bothwell, near 

 Woo. BIV. YOI. i. 



Glasgow, in 1762. She was the sister of Dr. Matthew Baillie, the sub- 

 ject of the following article. The history of her uneventful life is soon 

 told. The daughter of a Scottish clergyman and professor of divinity, 

 and of a mother in whose family superior intelligence seemed a com- 

 mon property, Joanna, while trained in the strict manner usual in a 

 Scottish manse, not only received an excellent education, but from her 

 childhood was brought into constant intercourse with people likely to 

 call into activity her own mental gifts. Her career through life was 

 quiet, unobtrusive, domestic ; her tastes were all studious ; her dispo- 

 sition was gentle, kindly, and benevolent. At an early period she 

 removed to London, where her brother, Dr. Baillie, was settled as a 

 physician. After a time she with her sister Agnes took up her resi- 

 dence at Hampstead, which, while from its proximity to the metropolis 

 it allowed her to enjoy ready intercourse with the many friends her 

 literary fame drew about her, insured her at the same time a certain 

 amount of retirement ; and here the rest of her lengthened life was 

 spent. She was known and esteemed by the most eminent of her 

 contemporaries of more than two generations, and for very many years 

 even from the New World visitors, attracted by he charm of her 

 poetry, came to obtain her acquaintance and to listen to her conversa- 

 tion. Those who visited her 'out of admiration returned adding to that 

 sentiment feelings of aftvction and respect. She died at Hampstead on. 

 the 23rd of February, 1851, in her eighty-ninth year, having retained 

 her faculties to the last. 



Though Joanna Baillie possessed in a large measure that keen and 

 sensitive interest in all that developed the feelings or touched the 

 destinies of others, and that sensibility and sympathy which are the 

 special heritage of dramatic poets, yet these sentiments had in her 

 instance more of pensivcneas and of speculativeness than of fire, and 

 made her seek and find events in her own thoughts rather than in 

 action and experiment. Adventure may be, and has often been, the 

 school of poetry for men ; but a woman, and especially one of Joanna 

 Baillie's feminine and modest disposition, must invoke the muse with 

 a serener and more gentle worship. A close and penetrating observer, 

 and gifted with no common genius, yet not favoured with the highest, 

 nor endowed with the inspiration of ' many-mindedness,' which makes 

 poetry of the first order bear to philosophy the same relation that 

 intuition bears to calculation, Joanna Baillie early in life conceived a 

 literary project based on a principle essentially erroneous, but which 

 led to the production of her greatest works, the celebrated ' Plays on 

 the Passions.' The principle on which all these plays were constructed 

 was to select some one of the more powerful passions that agitate man- 

 kind, and to exhibit it in' full actiou, by making the hero of the drama 

 completely subjected to it, aud by evolving out of the promptings to 

 which he is represented as paying undivided aud uninterrupted allegi- 

 ance, every incident and situation. Admitting fully the noble poetry 

 with which these plays are filled, and even the deep interest of many 

 positions and events, it is evident that such characters must have a 

 constrained, morbid, and unreal aspect; since in life, as in the dramatic 

 creations of the highest genius, we constantly see that the dominant 

 passion is turned aside or suspended by, it may be transient, but for 

 the time irresistible, counter-thoughts or the force of circumstances ; 

 and this is a main reason why her plays have only achieved a partial 

 and temporary success on the stage. Yet the one master passion is 

 often admirably exhibited laid bare in its most secret workings 

 subjected to a keen and searching analysis. 



It was in 1798 that Miss Baillie published the first volume of her 

 ' Plays on the Passions.' She was then thirty-six years old. Aa a 

 book the production met with great success ; and a second edition 

 was called for in a few months. In 1802 she published a second 

 volume. Two years later, appeared her 'Miscellaneous Plays.' Among 

 these was the ' Family Legend,' a tragedy, which she used to terra 

 " her Highland play." It was acted for the first time at Edinburgh, 

 in Jauunry 1810, with brilliant, but not durable, success. The pro- 

 logue was written by Sir Walter Scott, who interested himself most 

 ardently in its production on the stage ; and Mrs. Siddons sustained 

 the principal female part. In 1812 appeared the third volume of the 

 ' Plays on the Passions.' In 1836 she published three more volumes 

 of dramatic poetry. Previously to this, her tragedy of ' De Montfort,' 

 perhaps the finest of her productions, had been brought out in Loudou ; 

 and for eleven nights John Kemble sustained the character of tho 

 hero. Again, in 1821, this play was put on the stage for Edmund 

 Kean to perform the same part. The ' Separation,' one of the Miscel- 

 laneous plays, aud ' Henriquez,' one of those on the passions, and 

 both tragedies, have also been acted. 



Notwithstanding tho originality of conception of Joanna Baillie's 

 great dramatic poems, and the fire and inspiration with which passages 

 in all of them are composed, no perfect idea could be gathered of 

 the writer's powers from, these performances alone. Her fugitive 

 pieces, her ballads,'her occasional lines, and her songs, taken together, 

 afford the true measure of Joanna's powers, and the fairest proof of 

 her versatile, genius. They are bright, fresh, simple, and genuine ; 

 often humorous; sometimes highly pathetic; occasionally homely; 

 never low, common-place, or gross. We must add that, along with all 

 these natural gifts of the true poet, she possessed those acquired 

 advantages, which nothing but severe and constant labour can bestow. 

 Among her lighter effusions, the ' Woo'd and Married and a,' ' The 

 Kitten,' ' To a Child,' ' The Weary pund o' Tow,' and ' Tarn o' the 



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