Considering the tact and judgment which Mr Longfellow generally displays, we were surprised to find that the longest poem in the volume, with the exception, perhaps, of "The Spanish Student, a play in three acts," has been written in Latin hexameters--is, in fact, one of those painful unlucky metrical experiments which poets will every now and then make upon our ears. They have a perfect right to do so: happily there is no statute which compels us to read. A man may, if he pleases, dance all the way from London to Norwich: one gentleman is said to have performed this feat. We would not travel in that man's company. We should grow giddy with only looking upon his perpetual shuffle and _cinq-a-pace_. The tripping dactyle, followed by the grave spondee, closing each line with a sort of _curtsey_, may have a charming effect in Latin. It pleased a Roman ear, and a scholar learns to be pleased with it. We cannot say that we have been ever reconciled by any specimen we have seen, however skilfully executed, to the imitation of it in English; and we honestly confess that, under other circumstances, we should have passed over _Evangeline_ unread. If, however, the rule _de gustibus_, &c., be ever quite applicable, it is to a case of this kind. With those who assert that the imitation hexameter does please them, and that they like, moreover, the idea of _scanning_ their English, no controversy can possibly be raised. But although _Evangeline_ has not reconciled us to this experiment, there is so much sweetness in the poetry itself, that, as we read on, we forget the metre. The story is a melancholy one, and forms a painful chapter in the colonial history of Great Britain. Whether the rigour of our Government was justified by the necessity of the case, we will not stop to inquire; but a French settlement, which had been ceded to us, was accused of favouring our enemies. The part of the coast they occupied was one which could not be left with safety in unfriendly hands; and it was determined to remove them to other districts. The village of Grand Pré was suddenly swept of its inhabitants. Evangeline, in this dispersion of the little colony, is separated from her lover; and the constancy of the tender and true-hearted girl forms the subject of the poem. Our readers will be curious, perhaps, to see a specimen of Mr Longfellow's hexameters. _Evangeline_ is one of those poems which leave an agreeable impression as a whole, but afford few striking passages for quotation. The following is the description of evening in the yet happy village of Grand Pré:--