In 1776 Dr. James Baillie was made Professor of Divinity at Glasgow University.  During the two years the family lived in the college atmosphere, Joanna first read ‘Comus,’ and, led by the delight it awakened, the great epic of Milton.  It was here that her vigor and disputatious turn of mind “cast an awe” over her companions.  After her father’s death she settled, in 1784, with her mother and brother and sister in London.

She had made herself familiar with English literature, and above all she had studied Shakespeare with enthusiasm.  Circumscribed now by the brick and mortar of London streets, in exchange for the fair views and liberties of her native fruitlands, Joanna found her first expression in a volume of ‘Fugitive Verses,’ published in 1790.  The book caused so little comment that the words of but one friendly hand are preserved:  that the poems were “truly unsophisticated representations of nature.”

Joanna’s walk was along calm and unhurried ways.  She could have had a considerable place in society and the world of “lions” if she had cared.  The wife of her uncle and name-father, the anatomist Dr. John Hunter, was no other than the famous Mrs. Anne Hunter, a songwright of genius; her poem ‘The Son of Alknomook Shall Never Complain’ is one of the classics of English song, and the best rendering of the Indian spirit ever condensed into so small a space.  She was also a woman of grace and dignity, a power in London drawing-rooms, and Haydn set songs of hers to music.  But the reserved Joanna was tempted to no light triumphs.  Eight years later was published her first volume of ‘Plays on the Passions.’  It contained ‘Basil,’ a tragedy on love; ‘The Trial,’ a comedy on the same subject; and ‘De Montfort,’ a tragedy on hatred.

The thought of essaying dramatic composition had burst upon the author one summer afternoon as she sat sewing with her mother.  She had a high moral purpose in her plan of composition, she said in her preface,—­that purpose being the ultimate utterance of the drama.  Plot and incident she set little value upon, and she rejected the presentation of the most splendid event if it did not appertain to the development of the passion.  In other words, what is and was commonly of secondary consideration in the swift passage of dramatic action became in her hands the stated and paramount object.  Feeling and passion are not precipitated by incident in her drama as in real life.  The play ’De Montfort’ was presented at Drury Lane Theatre in 1800; but in spite of every effort and the acting of John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, it had a run of but eleven nights.

In 1802 Miss Baillie published her second volume of ’Plays on the Passions.’  It contained a comedy on hatred; ‘Ethwald,’ a tragedy on ambition; and a comedy on ambition.  Her adherence to her old plan brought upon her an attack from Jeffrey in the Edinburgh Review.  He claimed that the complexity of the moral nature of man made Joanna’s theory false and absurd, that a play was too narrow to show the complete growth of a passion, and that the end of the drama is the entertainment of the audience.  He asserted that she imitated and plagiarized Shakespeare; while he admitted her insight into human nature, her grasp of character, and her devotion to her work.