In this line of composition, so rarely attempted by female genius, the Countess de Vemieiro displays a singular purity of taste, an exquisite delicacy of feeling, and an interest derived rather from passion than from circumstances,—qualities, indeed, which more particularly distinguish her sex. In the catastrophe, as well as in the rest of the piece, the Countess de Vemieiro appears to have studied the laws of the French theatre; and, in the vivacity of her dialogue, Voltaire, rather than Corneille or Racine, would seem to have been kept in view. The whole is composed in iambic verse, free from rhyme; and we are, perhaps, justified in asserting that this tragedy is the only one which the Portuguese theatre can properly be said to possess.
JOANNA BAILLIE.
[BORN 1762. DIED 1851.]
PROFESSOR SPALDING.
HE daughter of a parish minister in Bothwell in Lanarkshire. Her mother was sister of John and William Hunter, the famous anatomists. Her life was spent in domestic privacy, and marked by no events more important than the appearance of her successive works. Her brother, who became Sir Matthew Baillie, having settled as physician in London, Miss Baillie removed thither at an early age. She resided in the metropolis or its neighbourhood almost constantly, and died at Hampstead in February 1851.
Her first volume of dramas was published in 1798. Their design, as to which it is not too much to say that the works were good in spite of it, not by means of it, was indicated in the title, "A Series of Plays, in which it is Attempted to Delineate the Stronger Passions of the Mind, each Passion being the Subject of a Tragedy and a Comedy." A second volume of the "Plays of the Passions" appeared in 1802, and a third in 1812. The tragedies are fine poems, noble in sentiment, and classical and vigorous in language; but they were not fit for the stage, and "De Montfort" itself was with difficulty supported for a while by the acting of John Kemble and Mrs Siddons. The tragedy of "The Family Legend," not contained in the series, was acted in Edinburgh in 1809, after a visit the poetess had paid to Sir Walter Scott. In 1836 she published another series of "Plays of the Passions," of which "Henriquez" and "The Separation," the former a very striking piece, were attempted on the stage. Some of Miss Baillie's small pieces were exceedingly good.
