From these clouds of the Present, it is pleasant to turn the thoughts to some objects which have cast a light upon the Past, and which, by the virtue of their very nature, prescribe hope for the Future.  I have mentioned with satisfaction seeing some persons who illustrated the past dynasty in the progress of thought here:  Wordsworth, Dr. Chalmers, De Quincey, Andrew Combe.  With a still higher pleasure, because to one of my own sex, whom I have honored almost above any, I went to pay my court to Joanna Baillie.  I found on her brow, not indeed a coronal of gold, but a serenity and strength undimmed and unbroken by the weight of more than fourscore years, or by the scanty appreciation which her thoughts have received.

I prize Joanna Baillie and Madame Roland as the best specimens which have been hitherto offered of women of a Roman strength and singleness of mind, adorned by the various culture and capable of the various action opened to them by the progress of the Christian Idea.  They are not sentimental; they do not sigh and write of withered flowers of fond affection, and woman’s heart born to be misunderstood by the object or objects of her fond, inevitable choice.  Love (the passion), when spoken of at all by them, seems a thing noble, religious, worthy to be felt.  They do not write of it always; they did not think of it always; they saw other things in this great, rich, suffering world.  In superior delicacy of touch, they show the woman, but the hand is firm; nor was all their speech, one continued utterance of mere personal experience.  It contained things which are good, intellectually, universally.

I regret that the writings of Joanna Baillie are not more known in the United States.  The Plays on the Passions are faulty in their plan,—­all attempts at comic, even at truly dramatic effect, fail; but there are masterly sketches of character, vigorous expressions of wise thought, deep, fervent ejaculations of an aspiring soul!

We found her in her little calm retreat at Hampstead, surrounded by marks of love and reverence from distinguished and excellent friends.  Near her was the sister, older than herself, yet still sprightly and full of active kindness, whose character and their mutual relation she has, in one of her last poems, indicated with such a happy mixture of sagacity, humor, and tender pathos, and with so absolute a truth of outline.  Although no autograph collector, I asked for theirs, and when the elder gave hers as “sister to Joanna Baillie,” it drew a tear from my eye,—­a good tear, a genuine pearl,—­fit homage to that fairest product of the soul of man, humble, disinterested tenderness.

Hampstead has still a good deal of romantic beauty.  I was told it was the favorite sketching-ground of London artists, till the railroads gave them easy means of spending a few hours to advantage farther off.  But, indeed, there is a wonderful deal of natural beauty lying in untouched sweetness near London.  Near one of our cities it would all have been grabbed up the first thing.  But we, too, are beginning to grow wiser.