in also held a constant intercourse, through a large part of
her life, with Joanna Baillie, whom she always regarded with profound
honor and love. She had a personal acquaintance with almost every
literary woman of celebrity in England, from the last decade of the
eighteenth, to the middle of the nineteenth, century. And of all
these, with the sole exception of Mrs. Barbauld, she says, Joanna
Baillie made by far the deepest impression on her. "Her genius,"
writes this admiring friend, "was surpassing; her character, the most
endearing and exalted." No one had suspected the great genius of
Joanna Baillie, so thick a veil of modest reserve had covered it.
Soon after the publication of her "Plays on the Passions," Miss Aikin
says, "She and her sister I well remember the scene arrived on a
morning call at Mrs. Barbauld's. My aunt immediately introduced the
topic of the anonymous tragedies, and gave utterance to her
admiration with that generous delight in the manifestation of kindred
genius which distinguished her. But not even the sudden delight of
such praise, so given, could seduce our Scottish damsel into self-
betrayal. The faithful sister rushed forward to bear the brunt, while
the unsuspected author lay snug in the asylum of her taciturnity. She
had been taught to repress all emotions, even the gentlest. Her
sister once told me that their father was an excellent parent; when
she had once been bitten by a dog thought to be mad, he had sucked
the wound, at the hazard, as was supposed, of his own life; but that
he had never given her a kiss. Joanna spoke to me once of her
yearning to be caressed, when a child. She would sometimes venture to
clasp her little arms about her mother's knees, who would seem to
chide her; but I know she liked it. Be that as it may, the first
thing which drew upon Joanna the admiring notice of society was the
devoted assiduity of her attention to her mother, then blind as well
as aged, whom she waited on day and night.

"An innocent and maiden grace still hovered over Miss Baillie to the
end of her old age. It was one of her peculiar charms, and often
brought to my mind the line addressed to the vowed Isabella, in
Measure for Measure: I hold you for a thing enskyed and saintly. If
there were ever human creature pure in the last recesses of the soul,
it was surely this meek, this pious, this noble-minded, and nobly-gifted
woman, who, after attaining her ninetieth year, carried with her to the