As she did not refuse to go into company, she could not be long in Edinburgh without encountering Francis Jeffrey, the foremost man in the bright train of _beaux-esprits_ which then adorned the society of the Scottish capital. He would gladly have been presented to her; and if she had permitted it, there is little doubt that in the eloquent flow of his delightful and genial conversation, enough of the admiration he really felt for her poetry must have been expressed, to have softened her into listening at least with patience to his suggestions for her improvement. But in vain did the friendly Mrs. Betty Hamilton (authoress of "The Cottagers of Glenburnie") beg for leave to present him to her when they met in her hospitable drawing-room; and equally in vain were the efforts made by the good-natured Duchess of Gordon to bring about an introduction which she knew was desired at least by one of the parties. It was civilly but coldly declined by the poetess; and though the dignified reason assigned was the propriety of leaving the critic more entirely at liberty in his future strictures than an _acquaintance_ might perhaps feel himself, there seems little reason to doubt that soreness and natural resentment had something to do with the refusal. In 1809 her Highland play, the "Family Legend"--a tragedy founded on a story of one of the M'Leans of Appin--was successfully produced in the Edinburgh theatre. Sir Walter Scott, who took a lively interest in its success, contributed the prologue, and Henry Mackenzie (the "Man of Feeling") the epilogue. It was acted with great applause for fourteen successive nights, and gave occasion for the passage of many pleasant letters between Sir Walter and the authoress, afterward published by Mr. Lockhart. In 1812 followed the third and last volume of her plays illustrative of the higher passions of the mind. It contained four plays--one in verse and one in prose on fear ("Orra" and the "Dream"); the "Siege," a comedy on the same passion; and "The Beacon," a serious musical drama--perhaps the most faultless of Miss Baillie's productions, and generally allowed to be one of the most exquisite dramatic poems in the English language. This fresh attempt, at the end of nine years, to follow out, against all warning and advice, her narrow and objectionable system of dramatic art, was certainly ill-judged. Of course it brought upon the pertinacious theorist another tremendous broadside from the provoked reviewer. But though we can sympathize in a considerable degree with him in denouncing her whole scheme--and more bitterly than ever--as perverse, fantastic, and utterly impracticable--it is not easy to forgive the accusation so liberally added as to the execution--of poverty of incident and diction, want of individual reality of character, and the total absence of wit, humor, or any species of brilliancy. That Miss Baillie's plays are better suited to the sober