ON THE SETTING SUN. Those evening clouds, that setting ray, And beauteous tints, serve to display Their great Creator's praise; Then let the short-lived thing called man Whose life's comprised within a span, To Him his homage raise. We often praise the evening clouds, And tints so gay and bold, But seldom think upon our God, Who tinged these clouds with gold. Scott was educated at the Edinburgh High School, and University. He had an aversion to Greek, a singular fact, but made some proficiency in Latin, moral philosophy and history. He also made himself tolerably familiar with the French, German and Italian tongues. Being much at home, he indulged in reading romances and poetry. From early life, he was an industrious collector of old ballads, many of which he committed to memory. Apprenticed to his father, as "a writer," he commenced the study of law, and began to practice in his twenty-first year. As his health was now vigorous, he made long excursions into the country, which he facetiously denominated _raids_, rambling over scenes of external beauty or of historic interest, making acquaintance with the country people, and picking up information about men and things. By this means he amassed an immense store of everyday facts, and an intimate knowledge of character, which were of immense service to him in the construction of his novels. Scott's first appearance as an author was in the translation from the German of Burger's Leonore, and "Der Wilde Jäger," or the "Wild Huntsman," ballads of singular wildness and power. These, however, made little impression on the public mind. Of this he says, "The failure of my first publication did not operate, in any unpleasant degree, either on my feelings or spirits. To speak candidly, I found pleasure in the literary labor in which I had, almost by accident, become engaged, and labored less in the hope of pleasing others, though certainly without despair of doing so, than in the pursuit of a new and agreeable amusement to myself." He continued to read the German, and to make translations from it, and became more and more interested in the ballad poetry. He was delighted to find the affinity of the old English, and especially of the Scottish language to the German, not in sound merely, but in the turn of phrase, so that they were capable of being rendered line for line, with very little variation.