While examining and admiring those very beautiful Daguerreotypes, I little thought that I was standing, as it were, between the birth of one process and the death of another; but so it was, for the newly-born collodion process very soon annihilated the Daguerreotype, although the latter process had just reached the zenith of its beauty. In the March number of the _Chemist_, Archer's Collodion Process was published, and that was like the announcement of the birth of an infant Hercules, that was destined to slay a beautiful youth whose charms had only arrived at maturity. But there was really a singular and melancholy coincidence in the birth of the Collodion Process and the early death of the Daguerreotype, for Daguerre himself died on July 10th, 1851, so that both Daguerre and his process appeared to receive their death blows in the same year. I don't suppose that Daguerre died from a shock to his system, caused by the publication of a rival process, for it is not likely that he knew anything about the invention of a process that was destined, in a very few years, to abolish his own--living as he was in the retirement of his native village, and enjoying his well-earned pension.
As Daguerre was the first of the successful discoverers of photography to be summoned by death, I will here give a brief sketch of his life and pursuits prior to his association with Nicéphore Niépce and photography. Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre was born at Cormeilles, near Paris, in 1787, of poor and somewhat careless parents, who appear to have bestowed upon him more names than attention. Though they did not endow him with a good education, they had the good sense to observe the bent of his mind and apprentice him to a theatrical scene painter. In that situation he soon made his mark, and his artistic and mechanical abilities, combined with industry, painstaking, and boldness of conception, soon raised him to the front rank of his profession, in which he gained both honour and profit. Like all true artists, he was fond of sketching from nature; and, to save time and secure true proportion, he employed such optical appliances as were then at his command. Some of his biographers say that he, like Fox Talbot, employed the camera lucida; others the camera-obscura; as there is a considerable difference between the two it would be interesting to know which it really was. At any rate it was one of these instruments which gave him the notion and created the desire to secure the views as they were presented by the lens or reflector. Much of his time was devoted to the painting and construction of a diorama which was first exhibited in 1822, and created quite a sensation in Paris. As early as 1824 he commenced his photographic experiments, with very little knowledge on the subject; but with the hope and determination of succeeding, by some means or other, in securing the pictures as Nature painted them on the screen or receiver. Doubtless he was sanguine enough then to hope to be able to obtain colours as well as drawings, but he died without seeing that accomplished, and so will many others. What he did succeed in accomplishing was marvellous, and quite entitled him to all the honour and emolument he received, but he only lived about twelve years after his discovery. He was, however, saved the mortification of seeing his beautiful discovery discarded and cast away in the hey-day of its beauty and perfection.