THE

DRAMATIC

AND

POETICAL WORKS

OF

JOANNA BAILLIE

COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME.

SECOND EDITION.

LONDON:

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS.

1853.

PREFACE.

ALL the Dramatic and Poetical Works of Joanna Baillie are now collected together, and presented to the Public, with many corrections, and a few additions, by herself. They are in this Volume arranged in three divisions. The first contains the Plays on the Passions, from which the reputation of the Author primarily and chiefly arose; in which is embodied the design she formed, at the commencement of her career, of writing a Tragedy and Comedy on each of the stronger passions of the mind. The second division embraces, under the head "Miscellaneous Plays," all her dramatic works not comprehended in that design. The third includes all her poetical compositions, not dramatic, nor connected with the Plays. In this division appears a poem entitled Ahalya Baee, recently printed for private circulation; and amongst the Fugitive Verses have been introduced some short poems never before published.

LIFE

OF

JOANNA BAILLIE.

which cause, perhaps, and from her having a twin-sister still-born, she was in infancy small and delicate.

Her father, Dr. James Baillie, was descended from an ancient family in Scotland, which, according to heraldic authorities, derives its ancestry from high sources, numbering among its progenitors the great patriot of Scotland, Wallace. His daughter, the heiress of Lamington, married Sir William Baillie, whose lineal descendants still possess the same estate, and from this stem Dr. James Baillie's branch proceeded. There are many collateral lines from the main body of this family, all more or less nearly allied; and Joanna has stated in her preface to the Metrical Legends that her ancestor of that period was connected by blood with Robert Baillie of Jerviswood, and was involved in the struggle which bestowed on him enduring fame, but terminated his life. Joanna's mother sprang likewise from an old family, the Hunters of Hunterston, in Ayr

THE life of Joanna Baillie contained unusually few incidents of an exciting or eventful nature. She lived in retirement from the first hour to the last. She was unmarried, and her sole constant companion was a sister likewise unmarried. The only circumstances which distinguished one day from another, apart from her literary career, were domestic matters or changes of locality, and these were few. She was connected with celebrity solely by a genius, which shed light on contemporary time, and far into the future. The quietude, however, of her existence renders more extraordinary the nature of its result. From her serene seclusion she sur veyed the wide and restless expanse of the human soul, she penetrated to its deepest and darkest recesses, was present to situations and emotions remote as possible from her own; and embodied a vast variety of conceptions in creations co-existent thenceforth with the language of this country. The most prominent events of her life, traits illustrative of her character, of the dawn and develop-shire; and she was the sister of the two broment of her genius, with the more important circumstances of her literary career, can alone interest the public mind.

Joanna Baillie was born on the 11th day of September, 1762, immediately after the affival of her mother at the manse of Bothwell near Glasgow, to the ministry of which parish her father had just been appointed from Shotts, the scene of his previous exertions. Her birth was premature; from

thers, highly celebrated in medical science, William and John Hunter.

The children by the marriage of Dr. James Baillie with Dorothea Hunter were William, who died in early infancy; Agnes; Matthew, afterwards the eminent physician; and Joanna.

The first six years of Joanna's life were passed at Bothwell, and, perhaps, at this early period the character of her future cele