But our limits forbid us to linger, and a mere enumeration of her remaining productions is all they will permit. This is the less to be regretted, that our object is rather to give a sketch, however slight and imperfect, of her long and honored life, than to attempt a studied analysis of works to which the world has long ago done justice. In 1821 were published her "Metrical Legends of Exalted Character," the subjects of which were--"Wallace, the Scottish Chief," "Columbus," and "Lady Griseld Baillie." They are written in irregular verse, avowedly after the manner of Scott, and are among the noblest of her productions. Some fine ballads complete the volume. In 1823 appeared a volume of "Poetical Miscellanies," which had been much talked of beforehand. It included, besides some slight pieces by Mrs. Hemans and Miss Catherine Fanshaw, Scott's fine dramatic sketch of "Macduff's Cross." "The Martyr," a tragedy on religion, appeared in 1826. It was immediately translated into the Cingalese language; and, flattered by the appropriation, Miss Baillie, in 1828, published another tragedy--"The Bride," a story of Ceylon, and dedicated in particular to the Cingalese. Of the three volumes of dramas written many years before, but not published till 1836--though they were eagerly welcomed by the public, and greatly admired as dramatic poems--only two, the tragedies of "Henriquez" and "The Separation," have ever been acted. These, besides many charming songs, sung by our greatest minstrels, and always listened to with delight by the public, and a small volume of "Fugitive Verses," complete the long catalogue of her successful labors. They were collected by herself, and published, with many additions and corrections, in the popular form of one monster volume, only a few weeks before her death.
To return, for a brief space, to the course of her life. It was in the autumn of 1820 that Miss Baillie paid her last visit to Scotland, and passed those delightful days with Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, the second of which is so pleasantly given in Mr. Lockhart's life of the bard. Her friends again perceived a change in her manners. They had become blander, and much more cordial. She had probably been now too long admired and reverently looked up to, not to understand her own position, and the encouragement which, essentially unassuming as she was, would be necessary from her to reassure the timid and satisfy the proud. She had magnanimously forgiven and lived down the unjust severity of her Edinburgh critic, and now no longer refused to be made personally known to him. He was presented to her by their mutual friend, the amiable Dr. Morehead. They had much earnest and interesting talk together, and from that hour to the end of their lives entertained for each other a mutual and cordial esteem. After this Jeffrey seldom visited London without indulging himself in a friendly pilgrimage to the shrine of the secluded poetess; and it is pleasing to find him writing of her in the following cordial way in later years: "_London, April_ 28, 1840.--I forgot to tell you that we have been twice out to Hampstead to hunt out Joanna Baillie, and found her the other day as fresh, natural, and amiable as ever--and as little like a Tragic Muse. Since old Mrs. Brougham's death, I do not know so nice an old woman." And again, in January 7, 1842--"We went to Hampstead, and paid a very pleasant visit to Joanna Baillie, who is marvelous in health and spirits, and youthful freshness and simplicity of feeling, and not a bit deaf, blind, or torpid."