- we mean as such works, given to the world with the sanction of a famous name on the title page the biographer not as the subject has the history of a public man been that of England, or even of a great portion of Europe, during the time he flourished. This is no doubt necessary to a degree, but it has been carried to a grievous excess. G. G. S. wisely omits all mention of the thousand and one witticisms attributed to Sheridan, many of which, given to him by heavy compilers in the Joe Miller line, may be traced pretty well up to Hierocles! Some of them, too, have been given of late to Canning, Hooke, and Sydney Smith! The dramatic works require no critical notice, only two are not known to the stage, and they are inferior to his other productions excepting of course that conglomeration of German fustian and British claptrap, 'Pizarro,' we allude to the Trip to Scarborough' and 'St. Patrick's Day.' The first mentioned is but an alteration of Sir John Vanburgh's Relapse.' It was brought out after Sheridan had commenced his career as a manager, and, after his wont, had promised great things. His laziness was much exclaimed against at the time - a mere adaptation after The Rivals' and 'The Duenna!" It should always be borne in mind, however, that Sheridan was by no means a lazy, careless wit; he was hardly even of the mob of gentlemen who write with ease; he wrote slowly and studiously, set his thoughts, as it were, and re-set them, until he conceived that the frame-work of his words brilliantly brought out his idea. But he was lazy because he left himself no time to write; courted and feasted on all hands, leisure was a thing almost unknown to him, while Carlton House revels at night, with a head-ache and Drury Lane embarrassments in the morning were indifferent incentives to literary toil. St. Patrick's Day' is a short farce, which contains, though mixed with baser matter, some Sheridanic touches. Soldiers agree to argue in platoons that their grievances might tell the better in a volley! An old lady represents that a soldier, in the American war, may in a twelvemonth, come home like a Colossus, with one leg at New York, and the other at Chelsea Hospital!" When Justice Credulous believes himself poisoned, by black arsenic in his coffee, and the physician drops in, the moribund exclaims. "There, he sees it already! Poison in my face -in capitals!" THE TRIUMPH OF WOMAN. BY CHARLES ROWCROFT. This is another of the many Christmas stories offered to the public this season, and by no means the worst among them. It has, at least, one remarkable quality; it is not an imitation of any previous Christmas story; which is a quality we prize highly, because so very few of the genus are good reading, or indeed good for anything but to be made presents of and to be forgotten. The Triumph of Woman' does not place woman in any very elevated or triumphant point of view; and a reader of timid mind need not shrink from the title under an idea that the book is about Amazons, or women who will have the upper hand and the last word in every thing. The tale teaches and suggests many things, and, not pre-eminently, but merely inter alia, the fact that Love (under the form of woman) – "Hath o'er all things maistrie." Over all things, even over beings not of this earth; for the hero is supposed to be descended from Le Verrier's newly-discovered planet, and to be speedily subjected to the influence of woman's love. The extraordinary origin of his hero gives the author an opportunity for endowing him with extraordinary powers both of body and mind; and for introducing all sorts of novel speculations in physics and psychology. The interest of the tale does not lie in the plot, which is nothing, but in the new ideas suggested to the reader's mind, and in the strange adventures of its asterial hero. FRANCE. Le Pacte de Famine; par El. Berthet. 2 vols. Le Prince Francisque; par D. Fabre d'Olivet. Paris. $4.50. Lilia, la Tyrolienne, par le marquis de Foubras. Paris. $3. Madame de Miremont, par le marquis de Foudras. 2 vols. Paris. $3. Les Franc-Juges, par Emm. Gonzalèz. 2 vols. Paris. $3. Le mauvais ange, par Jul. Lacroix. 2 vols. Paris. $4.50. De l'influence des capitaux anglais sur l'industrie européenne, depuis la révolution de 1688 jusqu'en 1846; par C. Wilson. Bruxelles. $1.12. Exposition de l'industrie Belge. Par J. B. A. M. Jobard, directeur du musée d'industrie. Bruxelles. 62c. GERMANY. Schweizerisches Familienbuch. Herausgeg. von J. J. Reithard. Zürich. $1.50. Kleine Lebensbilder. Aus der Mappe eines deutschen Arztes von Dr. J. Goldschmidt. Oldenburg. $2. Träumereien Ausserhalb der Gesellschaft. eines gefang. Freien von R. W. F. C. v. Keudell. Leipzig. $1.50. Die deutschen Pharisäer von Klencke. 3 Bde. Leipzig. $5. Rübezahl der Herr des Gebirges, Volkssagen aus dem Riesengebirge. Für Jung u. Alt erzählt vom Kräuterklauber. Leipzig. 35c. Licht u. Schatten. Ein histor. Roman aus d. Zeiten Peters d. Grossen von Russland von J. Satori. Nordhausen. $2. Welchem Arzte soll ich mich anvertrauen? Eine Beantwortung dieser Frage f. Diejenigen, welch eine Wasserkur gebrauchen wollen v. Dr. Römer. Leipzig. 25c. Der deutsche Handels- u. Schifffahrts-Bund. Bremen, (Heyse). 75c. Ansichten üb. Armenwesen im J. 1847, nebst den für d. Vf. bis jetzt daraus hervorgegangenen Folgen von Cl. v. Orsbach. Arnsberg. $37. Zeitbilder von Frz. v. Florencourt. 2. Bd. Grimma. $1.50. Die Lösung der preussischen Verfassungsfrage Gedichte eines deutschen Philosophen. Leip- von Frz. Schuselka. Hamburg. $1.50. zig. $1. Sämmtliche Gedichte von Elisab. Kulmann. Herausgeg. von K. Fr. v. Grossheinrich. Mit d. Leben, Bildniss der Dichterin. 2 Thle. in 1 Bd. Leipzig. $3.30. Briefe eines Deutschen über Galizien. Breslau. 87c. Die gegen Der zweifache Panslawismus. wärt. Lage der slaw. Völker gegenüber von Russland von Cypr. Robert. Leipzig. 50c. The Daguerreotype is published semi-monthly, for the Proprietors, by Tappan, Whittemore & Mason, Booksellers and Publishers, No. 114 Washington street, Boston, to whom orders for the work may be sent, and by whom they will receive prompt attention. To agents who will interest themselves in extending the circulation of the work, liberal commissions will be given. NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS. For the present and until further notice the Daguerreotype will be issued at intervals of three weeks. This arrangement will be continued for a short time only, and will make no material difference to subscribers, as they will receive their full complement of numbers. EVANGELINE, A TALE OF ACADIE. Evangeline, a Tale of Acadie. By HEN- ton. This is an American poem, full of beauties of really indigenous American growth; and we hail its appearance with the greater satisfaction, inasmuch as it is the first genuine Castalian fount which has burst from the soil of America. The verse-writers who have arisen among our Transatlantic cousins have produced many very graceful and pleasing lines, and some animated and stirring strains: but still they have done little more than imitate favorite poets of the old country. Echoes of the notes of Mrs. Hemans, and in blank verse, of Mr. Wordsworth, have been the most poetic sounds which the western gales have brought to us. Nor are we surprised at this. Some persons, perhaps, would expect that the new conditions and prospects of man and of society in the United States should give rise to a new spirit in every branch of literature; but those who have reflected how deep in past history lie the roots of all literary excellence, will not expect that any thing of value can soon be produced by Anglo-American poets, which does not draw most of its life-blood from the ancient national heart, the English poetry of past ages and though this is true of modern English poetry also, English writers seem hitherto to have more completely incorporated the historical life of the national mind into their being, so as to be ready to go on to new stages and forms of poetical thought and expression. However this may be, it cannot, we think, be denied, that the poetry hitherto published in America has been strongly marked with a derivative and imitative character; and that its beauties have been rather felicitous adaptations of the jewels of the English Muses than any new gems brought to light from the rocks of the Alleghanies or the sands of the prairies. To this general remark, we conceive the poem of Mr. Longfellow, now before us, to be a happy exception. Not only are the scenes and the history American,interest which belongs to many preceding poems (though quite as much to English as to American ones, witness Wyoming, Madoc, and Paraguay); but the mode of narration has a peculiar and native simplicity; the local coloring is laid on with a broad and familiar brush, and heightened frequently by livelier touches which "stick fiery off," and light up the whole picture. -- an Indeed, if there be any general character of imitation in Evangeline, it is rather with reference to German than to English models. Some features of the story, or rather of the pictures, and of the mode of narration, bear so much of similarity to Goethe's Herman and Dorothea, that we cannot doubt Mr. Longfellow to have derived suggestions and impulse from that exquisite poem. Nor is it at all an unworthy course for an American poet, to take for his model the most perfect of domestic epics, the Odyssey of the nineteenth century, — the poem more likely to be familiar with our grandchildren than any other which the past generation has produced. There is, as we have said, a considerable similarity in several of the pictures of Herman and Dorothea and of Evangeline. In both we have the details of a simple rural life, and the loves of dwellers in small towns presented to us; and, perhaps, the little village of Grand-Pré, in Acadia, "on the shores of the basin of Minas," had a closer resemblance in its names to the Rhine valleys, than could easily be found in England in modern times. In both the German and the American poem, the rural population is disturbed by the inflictions consequent upɔn a wide-wasting war; that of the end and that of the middle of the last century. In both, the trials arising from this calamity bring into view the strength and beauty of the heroine's character. But in the course of the two stories there is a wide difference. In the German poem, it is the wanderings of the exiled villagers which bring Herman and Dorothea together; and after a few impediments and trials of temper, the narrative ends with their betrothal. The American legend commences with the betrothal ceremony of Evangeline Bellefontaine, the daughter of a wealthy farmer, and Gabriel Lajeunesse, her neighbour, "the son of Basil the Blacksmith." Immediately after this event the lovers are separated by the public calamity of which we have spoken; and the rest of the poem is occupied with Evangeline's faithful endeavours to rejoin her lover, whom, after many years, she finds, only to tend him on his death-bed. This story, it will be readily imagined, interests rather by the successive scenes and traits of character which it presents, than by the progress of the action, which is only the general progress through a life of sorrow to the repose of the grave. Indeed, we cannot help wishing that Mr. Long fellow had found the history of his villagers consummated by some of the more ordinary and vulgar forms of earthly happiness; that we might have been left, as in the great German poem to which we have referred, with a cheerful impression at the end. However, we have no doubt that Mr. Longfellow has merely represented the facts; and he, probably, considers that the solemnity and resignation which hang about the catastrophe are more truly poetical than it would have been if the pair had been left to "live happily ever after." The description of Evangeline at the outset of the poem tells us how fair she was on weekdays, by means of several rural images: and that she was still fairer on Sunday morn, when, Down the long street she pass'd, with her chaplet of beads and her missal, The exiles were scattered to various The description of Evangeline after the calam- | cast. Long among them was seen a maiden who waited and wander'd, Dreary, and vast, and silent, the desert of Life, with its pathway We have taken the liberty of marking one sluggish passage in the versification, and one somewhat ungraceful repetition of phrase. We must trace poor Evangeline to her concluding | phase, when she had sought her Gabriel through Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long journey; As we have already intimated, this melancholy progression is, perhaps, likely to be felt as oppressive by common readers. But all, we think, must be pleased with the vivid pictures of rural scenes and incidents, which have generally a highly picturesque local character. Such, for instance, are these fine expressions which describe the Mississippi, where the exiles, among other dreary wanderings, roam, — From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the Father of Waters In another place, the descent of an American river is described, with its scenery: Now through rushing chutes, among green islands where plume-like Then emerged into broad lagoons, where silvery sand-bars Lay in the stream, and along the whimpering waves of their margin, Level the landscape grew, and along the shores of the river, Shaded by china-trees, in the midst of luxuriant gardens, Many of the peculiar traits of American ex- | simile, descriptive of the sad and indistinct foreternal nature come out in the way of images of internal feelings; as in the following beautiful bodings of the exiles at a particular period of their wanderings: As at the tramp of a horse's hoof on the turf of the prairies, So at the hoof-beats of Fate with sad forebodings of evil, Shrinks and closes the heart ere the stroke of doom has attained it. Such images as these, so applied, are real Again, we must give another fine prairie additions to the ancient stock of poetical wealth. scene: In the rear of the house, from the garden gate, ran a pathway We have, perhaps, given sufficient specimens of the peculiar picturesqueness of this poem. Of the story, after what we have said, it will hardly be expected that we should give extracts. We may quote a passage where Evangeline, with her guide, Father Felician, once more discover their old friend, Basil the blacksmith, transformed into an opulent herdsman in the southern part of the course of the Atchafalaya: Just where the woodlands met the flowery surf of the prairie Broad and brown was the face that from under the Spanish sombrero trial happiness is finally marred) is felt by the reader as a perverse and vexatious stroke of Fortune, or of the poet, as he ascribes it to the one or the other. Evangeline, however, is lured on by her hopes, and by the influences of nature, to follow the track of her wandering lover: Basil-for this was he informs Evangeline | dent like this (for, as we have said, their terresthat his son Gabriel, sorrowful and restless with the memory of her, had set out a few days before on a voyage up the river down which she had descended. It appears that they had missed each other only by taking opposite sides of one of the islands which lie in the river. The marring the happiness of the lovers by a mere acci "Patience!" whisper'd the oak from oracular caverns of darkness; Again, we have beautiful and characteristic | derer is lost. After years of grief, Evangeline descriptions of the scenery through which the journey lies; a picture of an Indian camp, where a Shawnee woman repeats the tales current in her tribe; a visit to a Jesuit mission, where it appears that Gabriel had been only six days previous; finally, however, the trace of the wan becomes a Sister of Mercy in Pennsylvania. A pestilence falls on the city. Among the sick and the dying she finds one whose aspect calls from her a shudder and an involuntary cry. It was Gabriel, Vainly he strove to rise, and Evangeline, kneeling beside him, All is over, and Evangeline is left to her meek | resignation. The tomb of the lovers still exists, unknown and unnoticed, the poet tells us, in the heart of the city of Philadelphia. We have given such specimens as our space allowed of the pictures of rural life and scenery, which are the peculiar charm of this poem; the reader will find many others of equal beauty. But in taking our leave of the poem here, we cannot help remarking the great advantage which Mr. Longfellow has derived from his use of the hexameter. This kind of verse has the privilege of liberating the poet from the conventions of the usual forms of versification, which cling so closely to modern writers, especially in descriptive poetry, and deprive them, in a great degree, of the simplicity and truth of reality. The images so presented seem as if they came fresh from nature. Moreover, this kind of verse requires, and in Mr. Longfellow's hands has, an idiomatic plainness of phraseology, which approaches to the narratives in the book of Genesis, and which prevents the most trivial details of ordinary life from being mean or ridiculous. In this respect, also, Mr. Longfellow has most happily followed Goethe, and many of his descriptions ring in our ears as echoes of things which are told of Herman's "good intelligent mother," and "the host of the Golden Lion." In general, Mr. Longfellow's hexameters are good. They |