Legend” was produced at the Edinburgh theatre, under the auspices of the former illustrious character; and was ably supported by Mrs Siddons, and by Terry, then at the commencement of his career.  It was favourably received during ten successive performances.  “You have only to imagine all that you could wish to give success to a play,” wrote Sir Walter Scott to the author, “and your conceptions will still fall short of the complete and decided triumph of the ‘Family Legend.’  The house was crowded to a most extraordinary degree; many people had come from your native capital of the west; everything that pretended to distinction, whether from rank or literature, was in the boxes; and in the pit, such an aggregate mass of humanity as I have seldom, if ever, witnessed in the same space.”  Other two of her plays, “Count Basil” and “De Montfort,” brought out in London, the latter being sustained by Kemble and Siddons, likewise received a large measure of general approbation; but a want of variety of incident prevented their retaining a position on the stage.  In 1836, she produced three additional volumes of dramas; her career as a dramatic writer thus extending over the period of nearly forty years.

Subsequent to her leaving Scotland, in 1784, Joanna Baillie did not return to her native kingdom, unless on occasional visits.  On the marriage of her brother to a sister of the Lord Chief-Justice Denman, in 1791, she passed some years at Colchester; but she subsequently fixed her permanent habitation at Hampstead.  Her mother died in 1806.  At Hampstead, in the companionship of her only sister, whose virtues she has celebrated in one of her poems, and amidst the society of many of the more distinguished literary characters of the metropolis, she continued to enjoy a large amount of comfort and happiness.  Her pecuniary means were sufficiently abundant, and rendered her entirely independent of the profits of her writings.  Among her literary friends, one of the most valued was Sir Walter Scott, who, being introduced to her personal acquaintance on his visit to London in 1806, maintained with her an affectionate and lasting intimacy.  The letters addressed to her are amongst the most interesting of his correspondence in his Memoir by his son-in-law.  He evinced his estimation of her genius by frequently complimenting her in his works.  In his “Epistle to William Erskine,” which forms the introduction to the third canto of “Marmion,” he thus generously eulogises his gifted friend:—­

    “Or, if to touch such chord be thine,
    Restore the ancient tragic line,
    And emulate the notes that wrung
    From the wild harp, which silent hung
    By silver Avon’s holy shore,
    Till twice a hundred years roll’d o’er;
    When she, the bold Enchantress, came,
    With fearless hand and heart on flame! 
    From the pale willow snatch’d the treasure,
    And swept it with a kindred measure,
    Till Avon’s swans, while rung the grove
    With Montfort’s hate and Basil’s love,
    Awakening at the inspired strain,
    Deem’d their own Shakspeare lived again.”