It is noteworthy that on the first occasion of the great novelist, whom a clever critical correspondent of mine calls the ‘greatest second-rate man the world ever saw,’ coming to London in the summer of 1806, the year in which Miss Baillie’s mother died, one of his earliest visits was to his gifted fellow-countrywoman—for the little manse, near Bothwell Brig, in the valley of the Clyde, where her father was minister, was Joanna Baillie’s birthplace—a visit that led to many others on both sides, and a friendship, as I have said, that lasted through life. She tells us that at her first meeting with him she was disappointed, so different was he in appearance from the ideal bard of the ‘Lay,’ which her own poetical mind had imagined. She had pictured an ‘ideal elegance and refinement of feature in the poet,’ ‘but found comfort in looking at the benevolence and shrewdness in the rough-hewn, homely face of her great compatriot; and in the thought that were she in a crowd, and at a loss what to do, she should have fixed upon that face among a thousand, as the sure index of a brave kind nature that would, and could, help her in her strait.’ Yet before they had talked long, she saw in the expressive play of his countenance far more, even of elegance and refinement, than she had missed in its mere lines. Henceforth she and her brother, Dr. Matthew Baillie, were amongst the most honoured friends of Sir Walter. The acquaintance on both sides ripened into the most affectionate regard. Amongst Joanna Baillie’s correspondence, Sir Walter’s letters are about the most interesting. One of them has for the purposes of these pages a twofold interest, not only as showing his admiration of the poetess, but as illustrating the evil reputation of the neighbourhood of Hampstead, and the dangers to which foot-passengers were liable, even at that time. The letter is dated 1811, and was written on the appearance of a new volume of Joanna Baillie’s ‘Plays on the Passions,’ one of them being the passion of Fear, in which appear the lines set to music by Bishop, with which we are all familiar, ‘The Chough and Crow.’