SOURCE: "Joanna Baillie's Place in Literature," in The Life and Work of Joanna Baillie (Yale Studies in English LXIV), Yale University Press, 1923, pp. 190–206.

Below, Carhart contends that Baillie's insistence that her plays present moral instruction and that individuals represent particular emotions was at the expense of believable characters. Carhart also traces the development of Baillie's works as they moved from emphasizing the intellectual to emphasizing the emotional.

North: James, who is the best female poet on the age? Shepherd: Female what? Tickler: Poet. Shepherd: Mrs. John Biley. In her Plays on the Passions she has a' the vigor o' a man, and a' the delicacy o' a woman. And Oh, Sire, but her lyrics are gems, and she wears them gracefully, like diamonddrops danglin' frae the ears o' Melpomene. The very worst play she ever wrote is better than the best o' ony ither body's that hasna kickt...