PAST AND PRESENT POLITICS.

With the reannexation of Florida to the Anglo-American dominion, the recognized extension of our western limit to the shores of the Pacific, and the partition of those new acquisitions between slavery and freedom, closed Monroe's first term of office; and with it a marked era in our history. All the old landmarks of party, uprooted as they had been, first by the embargo and the war with England, and then by peace in Europe, had since, by the bank question, the internal improvement question, and the tariff question, been completely superseded and almost wholly swept away. At the Ithuriel touch of the Missouri discussion, the slave interest, hitherto hardly recognized as a distinct element in our system, had started up, portentous and dilated, disavowing the very fundamental principles of modern democracy, and again threatening, as in the Federal Convention, the dissolution of the Union. It is from this point, already beginning, indeed, to fade away in the distance, that our politics of to-day take their departure.

MRS. MARY S. B. DANA.

THIS lady is the daughter of the late Rev. Dr. Palmer, of Charleston, S. C. She is the author of a volume of sweet religious and elegiac poetry, entitled "The Parted Family and other Poems," from which we take the following instructive piece, which was written soon after she had lost her husband and her only child.

PASSING UNDER THE ROD.

I saw the young bride, in her beauty and pride,
Bedeck'd in her snowy array:

And the bright flush of joy mantled high on her cheek,
And the future look'd blooming and gay:

And with woman's devotion she laid her fond heart

At the shrine of idolatrous love,

And she anchor'd her hopes to this perishing earth,
By the chain which her tenderness wove.

But I saw, when those heartstrings were bleeding and torn, And the chain had been sever'd in two,

She had changed her white robes for the sables of grief,
And her bloom for the paleness of wo!

But the Healer was there, pouring balm on her heart,
And wiping the tears from her eyes,

And he strengthen'd the chain he had broken in twain,
And fasten'd it firm to the skies!

There had whisper'd a voice-'twas the voice of her God: "I love thee-I love thee-pass under the rod!"

I saw the young mother in tenderness bend
O'er the couch of her slumbering boy,

And she kiss'd the soft lips as they murmur'd her name,
While the dreamer lay smiling in joy.

O, sweet as a rosebud encircled with dew,
When its fragrance is flung on the air,

So fresh and so bright to that mother he seem'd,

As he lay in his innocence there.

But I saw when she gazed on the same lovely form,
Pale as marble, and silent, and cold,

But paler and colder her beautiful boy.

And the tale of her sorrow was told!

But the Healer was there who had stricken her heart,

And taken her treasure away;

To allure her to Heaven, he has placed it on high,

And the mourner will sweetly obey.

There had whisper'd a voice-'twas the voice of her God: "I love thee-I love thee-pass under the rod!"

I saw the fond brother, with glances of love,
Gazing down on a gentle young girl,

And she hung on his arm, and breath'd soft in his ear,

As he played with each graceful curl.

O, he loved the sweet tones of her silvery voice,

Let her use it in sadness or glee;

And he twined his arms round her delicate form,

As she sat in the eve on his knee.

But I saw when he gazed on her death-stricken face,
And she breath'd not a word in his ear;

And he clasped his arms round an icy-cold form,
And he moistened her cheek with a tear.

But the Healer was there, and he said to him thus,

"Grieve not for thy sister's short life,"

And he gave to his arms still another fair girl,
And he made her his own cherish'd wife!

There had whisper'd a voice-'twas the voice of his God: "I love thee-I love thee-pass under the rod!”

I saw too a father and mother who lean'd

On the arms of a dear gifted son,

And the star in the future grew bright to their gaze,

As they saw the proud place he had won:

And the fast coming evening of life promis'd fair,
And its pathway grew smooth to their feet,
And the starlight of love glimmer'd bright at the end,
And the whispers of fancy were sweet.

And I saw them again, bending low o'er the grave,
Where their hearts' dearest hope had been laid,
And the star had gone down in the darkness of night,
And the joy from their bosoms had fled.

But the Healer was there, and his arms were around,
And he led them with tenderest care;

And he show'd them a star in the bright upper world,

'Twas their star shining brilliantly there!

They had each heard a voice-'twas the voice of their God:
"I love thee-I love thee-pass under the rod!"

GEORGE S. HILLARD.

GEORGE STILLMAN HILLARD was born at Machias, Maine, on the 224 of September, 1808, and after a due preparatory course of study at the Boston Latin School, he entered Harvard College in 1824. In 1833, he was admitted to the Suffolk County (Boston) Bar, and has ever since been engaged in the practice of his profession in that city. Ia 1845, he was elected to the city council of Boston, was subsequently a representative in the State legislature, and was elected to the State senate in 1850, where he exhibited abilities which elicited warm commendation from his friends.

But politics is evidently not the field congenial to the tastes and feelings of Mr. Hillard. It is in the higher and purer walks of lite rature that this polished and distinguished scholar shows himself to be at home, and here he has won a fame for refined taste, purity of style, and elevation of moral sentiment scarcely second to any one in our country.

Mr. Hillard's publications are as follows: "Fourth of July Oration before the City Authorities of Boston," 1835; "Discourse before the Phi Beta Kappa Society," 1843; "Connection between Geography and History," 1846; "Address before the Mercantile Library Association of Boston," 1850; "Address before the New York Pilgrim Society," 1851; "Eulogy on Daniel Webster before City Authorities of Boston," 1852; "Six Months in Italy," of which five editions have been pub

"The mass of information contained in these two volumes is immense · the criticisms novel, and, in our humble opinion, judicious; the writer's own

lished; A series of "Class Readers," four in number, for schools, consisting of extracts in prose and verse, with biographical and critical notices of the authors;' Guizot's "Essay on the Character and Influence of Washington," translated from the French, 1840; an edition of Spenser, in five volumes, with a critical introduction and occasional notes; "Selections from the Writings of Walter Savage Landor," 1856. Mr. Hillard was also editor, for some time, of the "American Jurist," and has contributed valuable articles to the "North American Review," ‚” “Christian Examiner," and "New England Magazine." To him also we are indebted for the life of the leader of the first settlers in Virginia-CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH-to be found in the second volume of Sparks' "Library of American Biography."

EXCURSION TO SORRENTO.2

On the morning of March 19th, I left Naples for Sorrento, making one of a party of five. The cars took us to Castellamare, a town beautifully situated between the mountains and the sea, much resorted to by the Neapolitans in the heats of summer. A lover of nature could hardly find a spot of more varied attractions. Before him spreads the unrivalled baydotted with sails and unfolding a broad canvas, on which the most glowing colors and the most vivid lights are dashed-a mirror in which the crimson and gold of morning, the blue of noon, and the orange and yellow-green of sunset behold a lovelier image of themselves-a gentle and tideless sea, whose waves break upon the shore like caresses, and never like angry blows. Should he ever become weary of waves and languish for woods, he has only to turn his back upon the sea and climb the hills for an hour or two, and he will find himself in the depth of sylvan and mountain solitudes-in a region of vines, running streams, deep-shadowed valleys, and broad-armed oaks-where he will hear the ring-dove coo and see the sensitive hare dart across the forest aisles. A great city is within an hour's reach; and the shadow of Vesuvius hangs over the landscape, keeping the imagination awake by touches of mystery and terror.

thoughts and feelings beautifully expressed. * * Mr. Hillard is evidently a scholar, a man of taste and feeling; something, we should opine, of a poet; and unmistakably a gentleman."- Frazer's Magazine.

I consider these as among the very best reading-books for schools, evincing throughout great taste and judgment in the selection of pieces, and just views in the critical notices.

2 About eighteen miles S. E. of Naples.

From Castellamare to Sorrento, a noble road has within a few years past been constructed between the mountains and the sea, which in many places are so close together that the width of the road occupies the whole intervening space. On the right, the traveller looks down a cliff of some hundred feet or more upon the bay, whose glossy floor is dappled with patches of green, purple, and blue; the effect of varying depth, or light and shade, or clusters of rock overgrown with sea-weed scattered over a sandy bottom. The road combined rare elements of beauty; for it nowhere pursued a monotonous straight line, but followed the windings and turnings of this many-curved shore. Sometimes it was cut through solid ledges of rock; sometimes it was carried on bridges, over deep gorges and chasms, wide at the top and narrowing towards the bottom, where a slender stream tripped down to the sea. The sides of these glens were often planted with orange and lemon-trees; and we could look down upon their rounded tops, presenting, with their dark-green foliage, their bright, almost luminous fruit, and their snowy blossoms, the finest combination of colors which the vegetable kingdom, in the temperate zone, at least, can show. The scenery was in the highest degree grand, beautiful, and picturesque with the most animated contrasts and the most abrupt breaks in the line of sight-yet never savage or scowling. The mountains on the left were not bare and scalped, but shadowed with forests, and thickly overgrown with shrubbery-such wooded heights as the genius of Greek poetry would have peopled with bearded satyrs and buskined wood-nymphs, and made vocal with the reeds of Pan and the hounds and horn of Artemis. All the space near the road was stamped with the gentle impress of human cultivation. Fruittrees and vines were thickly planted; garden vegetables were growing in favorable exposures; and houses were nestling in the hollows or hanging to the sides of the cliff. Over the whole region there is a smiling expression of wooing and invitation, to which the sparkling sea murmured a fitting accompaniment. No pitiless ice and granite chill or wound the eye; no funereal cedars and pines darken the mind with their Arctic shadows; but bloom and verdure, thrown over rounded surfaces, and rich

The colors of the Bay of Naples were a constant surprise and delight to me, from the predominance of blue and purple over the grays and greens of our coast. I was glad to find that my impressions on this point were confirmed by the practised eye of Cooper. There seem to be some elements affecting the color of the sea, not derived from the atmosphere or the reflec

tion of the heavens.