GOOGLE is today paying tribute to Scottish playwright, poet and philanthropist Joanna Baillie with one of its famous Google Doodles.
But who is she? And who is her famous relative?
The Mitchell Library 4 Google Doodle is celebrating the birthday of Scottish poet Joanna Baillie
Who is Joanna Baillie?
Born in Bothwell, Lanarkshire, on September 11, 1762, Joanna Baillie was a Scottish poet and playwright, known for Plays on the Passions and Fugitive Verses.
She was the youngest of three siblings and the daughter of a Presbyterian minister whose family could trace its roots back to the legendary Scottish warrior Sir William Wallace.
As a child, she enjoyed staging theatrical productions with her fellow classmates and continued this during her days at a Glasgow boarding school.
She claims she was unable to read until she was at least nine years old, but instead displayed a talent for drawing, considerable musical ability and a love of mathematics.
As she got older, her facility in the writing and acting of plays shone through and it was in Glasgow that she visited the theatre for the first time, kindling a lifelong passion for the stage.
In 1784, she moved to Fitzrovia, London, with her mother - a move which gave her access to the capital’s literary circle.
She soon met novelist Fanny Burney who encouraged her to follow her dreams, and soon after, Baillie penned her first poem Winter Day.
She decided to pursue an education in drama and began reading Shakespeare, Racine, Voltaire and Moliere.
After the family moved to Colchester in 1791, Baillie came up with the concept of Plays on the Passion and spent the following decade writing Basil, The Tryal and De Monfort, which would comprise the first published volume of Passions in 1798.
She relocated to Hamsptead and remained there with her sister Agnes following their mother’s death in 1806.
Baillie was admired throughout her lifetime for her intelligence, wit and her eye for human frailty.
Known as one of the most respected writers of her period, Baillie was also hailed as the finest female poet since Sappho and was celebrated by everyone from William Wordsworth and Lord Byron to John Stuart Mill and Maria Edgeworth.
She was also known for her generous philanthropic work on behalf of the poor.
Joanna Baillie died at her Hampstead home on February 23, 1851, at the age of 88.
Google 4 The Scottish playwright, poet and philanthropist was born in Lanarkshire on September 11, 1762
What was her most famous work?
Baillie was best knwon for her three volumes of Plays on the Passions and Fugitive Verses.
Baillie’s work explored moral philosophy and gothic fiction, which combines fiction, horror, death and sometimes romance.
Plays on the Passions “unveiled the human mind under the dominion of those strong and fixed passions” through a series of astute female-led comedies and tragedies.
The first volume of Passions was anonymously published in 1798, under the title of A Series of Plays.
Volume One consisted of Count Basil, a tragedy on love, The Tryal, a comedy on love, and De Monfort, a tragedy on hatred.
In a long introductory discourse, the author defended and explained her ambitious design to illustrate each of the deepest and strongest passions of the human mind.
The author explained that the plays were part of a larger design and were a completely original concept which arose from a particular view of human nature in which sympathetic curiosity and observation of the movement of feeling in others were paramount.
Baillie explained that real passion, “genuine and true to nature” was to be the subject of each instalment, with each play focusing on the growth of one master passion.
London’s citizens in their entirety excitedly tried to figure out who the author could be.
In fact, the authorship was attributed to a male author for some time until someone pointed out that all of the protagonists were middle-aged women, rarely the muses of male authors.
Baillie finally revealed herself as the author in 1800 in the title-page of the third edition.
Google 4 Google celebrated the Autumn Equinox with an appropriately themed doodle
What is a Google Doodle?
In 1998, the search engine founders Larry and Sergey drew a stick figure behind the second 'o' of Google as a message to that they were out of office at the Burning Man festival and with that, Google Doodles were born.
The company decided that they should decorate the logo to mark cultural moments and it soon became clear that users really enjoyed the change to the Google homepage.
In that same year, a turkey was added to Thanksgiving and two pumpkins appeared as the 'o's for Halloween the following year.
Now, there is a full team of doodlers, illustrators, graphic designers, animators and classically trained artists who help create what you see on those days.
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Among the Doodles published in 2018 were ones commemorating cartographer Abraham Ortelius, Egyptian actor Omar Sharif and St Patrick's Day.
And of course there was a whole series for the football World Cup in Russia.
Earlier in the year, the search giant celebrated the Paralympics in 2018 in Pyeongchang with an animated design celebrating each of the sports the winter Paralympians competes in.
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Joanna Baillie, a Scottish writer who was once compared to Shakespeare, was born 256 years ago today.
The poet and playwright is being celebrated in today's Google Doodle and is often hailed as one of the greatest female poets of all time.
Baillie, born today in Bothwell, Lankarshire in 1762, was a descendant of Scottish warrior Sir William Wallace and became notable in her own right through her literary works - which led friend and fellow writer Sir Walter Scott to brand her a "female Shakespeare".
She is best known for Plays on the Passions, an ambitious three volume project published between 1798 and 1812.
She came up with the idea for the sequence of comedies and tragedies about love, hatred and jealousy after moving to Colchester with her mother and sister in 1791 after the death of her father.
She hoped the series would unveil "the human mind under the dominion of those strong and fixed passions".
The first volume, made up of Count Basil: A Tragedy, The Tryal: A Comedy and De Monfort: A Tragedy, was originally published anonymously. The work became the talk of London as readers tried to guess the author's identity.
Baillie was revealed as the writer when the second volume was released in 1802. The third volume was published in 1814, by which time she had moved to Hampstead in London, where she spent the rest of her life with her sister Agnes.
Baillie showed her own brand of feminist literary criticism and set the tone for what would come to be known as English Romanticism in the works' Introductory Discourse.
She set out "the chief object" of her plays as being "to delineate the progress of the higher passions in the human breast" - and rated tragedy as "fitted to produce stronger moral effect than upon any other".
The plays show characters struggling with different passions, with the writer expecting the audience to empathise with them and learn from their mistakes.
Baillie had first entered literary circles in London when she and her mother moved into a property on Windmill Street in Fitzrovia in 1784 following the death of an uncle.
It was at this time that she met novelist Fanny Burney and was encouraged to write, shortly after which she penned her first poem Winter Day.
(Image: Popperfoto)
Though born into a well-off Scottish family, they had fallen on hard times after the sudden death of Baillie's father in 1778.
She and her sister were later able to buy the cottage in Hampstead where she lived and worked for most of her life thanks to an inheritance from a wealthy uncle. Her brother Matthew, a doctor, had inherited the Fitzrovia house.
She was known for entertaining in her cottage, which was a hub of the literary scene of the time.
(Image: Hulton Archive)
She maintained friendly relationships with many of the important British writers of her time, including William Wordsworth, and Lady and Lord Byron.
As well as her literary prowess, Joanna was remembered for her philanthropy.
But she always remembered the needy, donating half of the earnings from her writing to charity.
She also wrote an essay in support of chimney sweeps, and advocated for women writers as well as other authors who struggled to provide for themselves.
She never married and died aged 88 in Hampstead, London, where she is buried in the parish churchyard.
(Image: Universal Images Group Editorial)
Joanna Baillie's poems
A Summer Day
A Winter Day
Song, Woo’d And Married And A’
To The Rainbow
Hay-Making
A Mother To Her Waking Infant
London
See a full list of Baillie's poems.
Joanna Baillie's plays
Plays on the Passions vol 1: Count Basil; The Tryal; De Monfort
Plays on the Passions vol 2: The Election; Ethwald; The Second Marriage
Family Legend
Plays on the Passions vol 3: Orra; The Dream; The Siege; The Beacon
Multiple volumes of Miscellaneous Plays including: Rayner; Constantine Paleologus; The Country Inn
Basil, The Tryal and De Monfort feature in today's doodle, along with Ethwald and Orra.
GOOGLE has today paid homage to a prolific Scottish poet and playwright, Joanna Baillie, who would have turned 256 years old today.
Baillie’s works came at the start of the English Romantic period in literature and is best known for pieces such as Fugitive Verses and Plays on the Passions.
In honour of Baillie’s birthday, we’ve compiled a list of things you may not know about her.
Astonishing mosaic detail on the Joanna Baillie monument in Bothwell. (Video online in about a week.) pic.twitter.com/DrQpdT9uJI — Scotland Forever (@Guide2Scotland) September 5, 2018
Birth
Joanna was born the youngest of three children to Deborah Hunter and Presbyterian reverend James Baillie, in Bothwell, rural Scotland. She had a twin sister who died shortly after birth. The wealthy Baillies believed they were descendants of the Scottish war hero, William Wallace.
Education
A 10-year-old Baillie was sent to a boarding school in Glasgow, admitting “I could not read …until the age of nine”. Her sister disputer that she had in fact been illiterate until she was 11-years-old.
Baillie loved schoolwork and thrived in subjects such as art, drama, mathematics and music, but writing and performing in her own plays was by far her most treasured pastime at school.
Foray into poetry
The Baillie family moved to London in 1784 and Joanna was encouraged by her aunt, Anne Hunter, to try poetry. She studied a series of French authors like Volatire as well as playwrights like Shakespeare. Seven years later, Joanna had written her most famous piece, Plays on the Passions, which was praised by critics and hailed a new era of English Romanticism in literature.
Work
Baillie’s wildly popular work was often compared to Shakespeare. Her first poem ever published was Winter Day in 1790 and detailed her love of Scotland. Her first collection of poetry was published in the same year, entitled Poems: Wherein it is Attempted to Described Certain Views of Nature an of Rustrice Manners. Baillie donated half of her salary to a variety of charities.
Love life
Baillie lived with her sister Agnes after their parents died. During this time, she wrote songs, one of which was dedicated to her sister Agnes and entitled Lines to Agnes Baillie. Neither woman married but were known to have had relationships with well known people in London’s arts and science communities.
Famous friends
Baillie was well connected at the height of her career in London. She was in regular contact with world famous novelist Sir Walter Scott, author of famed books The Lady of The Lakeor and Ivanhoe. The pair would regularly send each other letters, chatting about their families.
She also became quite close with British nobelman and poet Lord Byron and his wife Anne Isabella Noel Byron, or Lady Byron.
Death
Baillie remained in reasonably good health until she died just before her 90th birthday in February 1851. Baillie and her sister Agnes are both buried beside their mother in Hampstead.
Joanna Baillie is remembered by today’s Google Doodle (Picture: Getty Images)
Tuesday, 11 September 2018 would have been Joanne Baillie’s 256th birthday, and Google have chosen this occasion to produce a Doodle to remember the Scottish poet.
Baillie was born in 1762 and lived to the age of 88, an impressive feat at the time, although not as impressive as her sister Agnes who lived to 100-years-old.
Given her longevity, it is no surprise that Joanna was a prolific poet with the majority of her work coming between 1790 and 1836.
Her most famous work was the three-volume Plays on the Passions, the first of which was published in 1798, the last coming in 1812.
Joanna Baillie’s Google Doodle (Picture: Google)
Baillie was born in Bothwell in Lanarkshire, moving to Hamilton in 1769 and then to Glasgow to attend boarding school.
However, it was when she moved to London in 1784 to live with her brother that her poetic work began as her aunt Anne Hunter was active in those circles.
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Further moves to Colchester and then to Hampstead were in store for Joanna, but the latter is where she settled and is where she is buried following her death in 1851.
Here are some of Joanna Baillie’s shorter poems and memorable quotes…
Joanna Baillie engraving by H. Robinson after Masquerier (Picture: Getty Images)
To Cupid
Child, with many a childish wile,
Timid look, and blushing smile,
Downy wings to steal thy way,
Gilded bow, and quiver gay,
Who in thy simple mien would trace
The tyrant of the human race?
Who is he whose flinty heart
Hath not felt the flying dart?
Who is he that from the wound
Hath not pain and pleasure found?
Who is he that hath not shed
Curse and blessing on thy head?
Song
What voice is this, thou evening gale!
That mingles with thy rising wail;
And, as it passes, sadly seems
The faint return of youthful dreams?
Though now its strain is wild and drear,
Blithe was it once as sky-lark’s cheer —
Sweet as the night-bird’s sweetest song, —
Dear as the lisp of infant’s tongue.
It was the voice, at whose sweet flow
The heart did beat, and cheek did glow,
And lip did smile, and eye did weep,
And motioned love the measure keep.
Oft be thy sound, soft gale of even,
Thus to my wistful fancy given;
And, as I list the swelling strain,
The dead shall seem to live again!
Joanna Baillie circa 1800 (Picture: Getty Images)
‘Pampered vanity is a better thing perhaps than starved pride.’
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‘I wish I were with some of the wild people that run in the woods, and know nothing about accomplishments!’
‘I have seen the day, when, if a man made himself ridiculous, the world would laugh at him. But now, everything that is mean, disgusting, and absurd, pleases them but so much the better!’
Joanna Baillie, 1762-1851, Scottish Poet And Dramatist. One Of The Most Eminent Female Writers And Poets That These Countries Have Produced, 1851 Engraving. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)
Song For An Irish Melody
The harper who sat on his green mossy seat,
And harped to the youngsters so loud and so sweet,
The far distant hum of the children at play,
And the maiden’s soft carol at close of the day,–
Ah! this was the music delighted my ear,
And to think of it now is so sad and so dear!
Ah! to listen again, by mine own cottage door,
To the sound of mine own native village once more!
I knew every dame in her holy-day airs;
I knew every maiden that danced at our fairs;
I knew every farmer to market who came,
And the dog that ran after him called by its name.
And who know I now in this far distant land,
But the stiff collared sergeant, and red-coated band?
No kinsman to comfort his own flesh and blood;
No merry eyed damsel to do my heart good!
To mine eye or mine ear no gay cheering e’er comes,
But the flare of our colours, the tuck of our drums;
The fierce flashing steel of our long mustered file,
And the sharp shrilly fifers a-playing the while.
At night, as I keep on the wearisome watch,
The sound of the west wind I greedily catch,
Then the shores of dear Ireland will rise to my sight,
And mine own native valley, that spot of delight!
Divided so far by a wide stormy main
Shall I ever return to our valley again?
Ah! to listen at ease by mine own cottage door,
To the sound of mine own native village once more!
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On Leaving Greece
Hellas ! farewell!-with anxious gaze I view,
Lovely in tears, and injur’d as thou art,
Thy summits melting in the distant blue,
Fade from my eyes, but linger in my heart.
Submissive, silent victim! dost thou feel
The chains which gall thee? or has lengthen’d grief
Numb’d hate and shame alike with hope and zeal,
And brought insensibility’s relief?
Awake! adjur’d by ev’ry chief and sage
Thou once could’st boast in many a meaner cause,
And let the tame submission of an age,
Like Nature’s hush’d and scarcely rustling pause,
Ere winds burst forth, foretell the approaching storm,
When thou shalt grasp the spear, and raise thy prostrate form.
A Melancholy Lover’s Farewell To His Mistress
Dear Phillis, all my hopes are o’er
And I shall see thy face no more.
Since every secret wish is vain,
I will not stay to give thee pain.
Then do not drop thy lowering brow,
But let me bless thee ere I go:
Oh! do not scorn my last adieu!
I’ve loved thee long, and loved thee true.
The prospects of my youth are crost,
My health is flown, my vigour lost;
My soothing friends augment my pain,
And cheerless is my native plain;
Dark o’er my spirits hangs the gloom,
And thy disdain has fixed my doom.
But light waves ripple o’er the sea
That soon shall bear me far from thee;
And, wheresoe’er our course is cast,
I know will bear me to my rest.
Full deep beneath the briny wave,
Where lie the venturous and brave,
A place may be for me decreed;
But, should the winds my passage speed,
Far hence upon a foreign land,
Whose sons perhaps with friendly hand
The stranger’s lowly tomb may raise,
A broken heart will end my days.
But Heaven’s blessing on thee rest!
And may no troubles vex thy breast!
Perhaps, when pensive and alone,
You’ll think of me when I am gone,
And gentle tears of pity shed,
When I am in my narrow bed.
But softly will thy sorrows flow
And greater mayest thou never know!
Free from all worldly care and strife,
Long mayest thou live a happy life!
And every earthly blessing find,
Thou loveliest of woman kind:
Yea, blest thy secret wishes be,
Though cruel thou hast proved to me!
And dost thou then thine arm extend?
And may I take thy lovely hand?
And do thine eyes thus gently look,
As though some kindly wish they spoke?
My gentle Phillis, though severe,
I do not grudge the ills I bear;
But still my greatest grief will be
To think my love has troubled thee.
Oh do not scorn this swelling grief!
The laden bosom seeks relief;
Nor yet this infant weakness blame,
For thou hast made me what I am.
Hark now! the sailors call away,
No longer may I lingering stay.
May peace within thy mansion dwell!
O gentle Phillis, fare thee well!
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