o faint attempts at
verse after I had undergone this sort of daw-plucking at the hands of
the apothecary's wife, but some friend or other always advised me to
put my verses into the fire; and, like Dorax in the play, I submitted,
thought with a swelling heart." These lines, and another short piece
"On the Setting Sun," were lately found wrapped up in a cover,
inscribed by Dr. Adam, "Walter Scott, July, 1783," and have been
kindly transmitted to me by the gentleman who discovered them.

ON A THUNDERSTORM.

"Loud o'er my head though awful thunders roll,
And vivid lightnings flash from pole to pole,
Yet 't is thy voice, my God, that bids them fly,
Thy arm directs those lightnings through the sky.
Then let the good thy mighty name revere,
And hardened sinners thy just vengeance fear."

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 call'd man,
Whose {p.083} 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!"[54]

[Footnote 54: I am obliged for these little memorials to the
Rev. W. Steven of Rotterdam, author of an interesting book on
the history of the branch of the Scotch Church long
established in Holland, and still flourishing under the
protection of the enlightened government of that country. Mr.
Steven found them in the course of his recent researches,
undertaken with a view to some memoirs of the High School of
Edinburgh, at which he had received his own early education.]

It must, I think, be allowed that these lines, though of the class to
which the poet himself modestly ascribes them, and not to be compared
with the efforts of Pope, still less of Cowley at the same period,
show, nevertheless, praiseworthy dexterity for a boy of twelve.

The fragment tells us that on the whole he was "more distinguished in
_the yards_ (as the High School playground was called) than in _the
class_;" and this, not less than the intellectual advancement which
years before had excited the admiration of Mrs.