The splendour of the scene generally commenced about twenty minutes before sun-set, when the feathery, fantastic, and regularly crystallized clouds in the higher regions of the atmosphere, became fully illumined by the sun's rays; and the fine mackerel-shaped clouds, common in these regions, were seen hanging in the concave of heaven like fleeces of burnished gold. When the sun approached the verge of the horizon, he was frequently seen encircled by a halo of splendour, which continued increasing till it covered a large space of the heavens: it then began apparently to shoot out from the body of the sun, in refulgent pencils, or radii, each as large as a rainbow, exhibiting, according to the rarity or density of the atmosphere, a display of brilliant or delicate tints, and of ever changing lights and shades of the most amazing beauty and variety. About twenty minutes after sun-set these splendid shooting rays disappeared, and were succeeded by a fine, rich glow in the heavens, in which you might easily fancy that you saw land rising out of the ocean, stretching itself before you and on every side in the most enchanting perspective, and having the glowing lustre of a bar of iron when newly withdrawn from the forge. On this brilliant ground the dense clouds which lay nearest the bottom of the horizon, presenting their dark sides to you, exhibited to the imagination all the gorgeous and picturesque appearances of arches, obelisks, mouldering towers, magnificent gardens, cities, forests, mountains, and every fantastic configuration of living creatures, and of imaginary beings; while the finely stratified clouds a little higher in the atmosphere, might really be imagined so many glorious islands of the blessed, swimming in an ocean of light. The beauty and grandeur of the sunsets, thus imperfectly described, surpass inconceivably any thing of a similar description which I have ever witnessed, even amidst the most rich and romantic scenery of our British lakes and mountains. Were I to attempt to account for the exquisite enjoyment on beholding the setting sun between the tropics, I should perhaps say, that it arose from the warmth, the repose, the richness, the novelty, the glory of the whole, filling the mind with the most exalted, tranquillizing, and beautiful images. * * * * * There is likewise a tale, Going to Sea, and the Ship's Crew, by Mrs. Bowdich, which equally merits commendation. Powerful as may be the aid which the editor has received from the _contributors_ to the "Friendship's Offering," we are bound to distinguish one of his own pieces--_Glen-Lynden, a Tale of Teviot-dale_, as the sun of the volume. It is in Spenserian verse, and a more graceful composition cannot be found in either of the Annuals. It is too long for entire extract, but we will attempt to string together a few of its beauties. The scenery of the Glen is thus described:--