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 had died in 1806. The sisters more than once revisited Scotland. Joanna “passed away without suffering” on the 23rd of February, 1851. Her firm adherence to a mistaken theory of dramatic writing--the subordination of all else to the development of a master passion--has prevented her plays from holding the stage. Her finely humorous Scotch songs are perfection in their way. Many of them were suggested by earlier songs, and written to the old airs; and the manner in which she has dealt with this rude material is an indication of those characteristics which led Lucy Aikin to speak of the “innocent and maiden grace” which “still hovered over her to the end.” Every contemporary mentions Joanna Baillie with respect, and with affectionate admiration of her graceful old age. * * * * * [Sidenote: Parentage.] Both father and mother were rarely high-principled; and, in spite of his warm affections and her latent faculties of humor and pathos, they were alike strongly tinged with the strict, somewhat stern, reserve of the old Scotch character. Agnes Baillie (Joanna’s sister) told Lucy Aikin that, though her father had sucked the poison from a bite which she had received from a dog believed to be mad, he had never kissed her in his life. Joanna herself spoke to the same friend of her unsatisfied yearning for caresses when a child, and of her mother’s simply chiding her when she ventured to clasp that mother’s knee; “but,” Joanna added, with perfect comprehension, “I know she liked it.” [Sidenote: Native place.]