Joanna appeared to her companions a capable young woman with much decision of character, like her mother. She was shy amongst strangers, but sufficiently frank to her friends; and in the midst of her seriousness she was the merriest soul when the fit took her. She had quietly written some clever Scotch songs, most of them adaptations from old ditties. These were already sung with glee around many a rustic hearth and at many a homely supper table.... Joanna was not handsome. She was below the middle height, and had the large, statuesque features which suit better with a stately figure. Years lent these features dignity rather than robbed them of grace. There is no word of her youthful bloom. She wore her hair for many years simply divided and braided across her forehead; but the hair must have grown low on it from the first, and, whether in a crop, or in braids, must have nearly concealed the expansive brow, which thus lent no relief to the dark gauntness of the face. The brows were firmly arched. Her mouth was wide, and expressed benevolence. Her chin was clearly moulded, and slightly projecting. She was the most sensible of wilful geniuses; the most retiring of “wise” women; the most maidenly of experienced elderly ladies; the most tenderly attached of daughters and sisters; one of the meekest and most modest of Christians. Joanna Baillie’s was a noble soul. She had a great man’s grand guilelessness, rather than a woman’s minute and subtle powers of sympathy; a man’s shy but unstinted kindness and forbearance, rather than a woman’s eager but measured cordiality and softness; a man’s modesty in full combination with a woman’s delicacy; and, as if to prove her sex beyond mistake, she had after all more than the usual share of a woman’s pugnacity and headstrongness, when the fit was upon her. SARAH TYTLER and J. L. WATSON: ‘Songstresses of Scotland.’ London: Strahan & Co., 1871. * * * * * [Sidenote: An innocent face.] Mrs. Barbauld mentions Miss Baillie in her letter to Mrs. Kenrick, and tells her how much amazed she was at finding the author [of ‘Plays on the Passions’] was not one of the already celebrated writers to whom it had been attributed, but “a young lady of Hampstead whom she visited, and who came to Mr. Barbauld’s meeting all the while with as innocent a face as if she had never written a line.” GRACE A. ELLIS (OLIVER): ‘Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld.’ Boston: J. R. Osgood & Co., 1874. * * * * * [Sidenote: A Sunday morning in 1801.]