Summer Pictures
From Copenhagen to Venice. By , Author of" The Irish Confederates and the Rebellion of 1798.” New York : Sheldon, Blakeman & Co. Boston: Gould & Lincoln. 1859.
THE unpretending title to this neat volume expresses the modest purpose of the writer. Escaping from care and responsibility, he has made a rapid tour through parts of Europe, some of which are rarely frequented;—from London to Normandy; thence to Paris, Holland, Denmark; through the Baltic to Berlin, Dresden, Prague, and Vienna; thence to the Adriatic, Venice, Milan, and so round again to Paris.
To see all this with new eyes, and to present the world with a perfectly fresh book of " Travels in Europe,” requires a rare man and a rare audacity; and we congratulate Mr. Field that he has not attempted the doubtful task. But, in his rapid run, he has gathered a flower here, a specimen there, a bit of history, a sight of a man, a pebble from the Baltic, a moss from Venice, a sigh from the heart of Italy, a word of hope and happiness from the domestic life of France. He has seen the cloud rising in Italy, and ventures to hope, almost against possibility. He has seen the firesides and homes of France, and assures us that in Paris, too, exist honest and warm and pure hearts, and generous and holy souls, and that all France is not a den in which liars and charlatans only struggle and tear one another. Mr. Field looks at things with somewhat of a professional eye, and draws what encouragement he can for the future of the Protestant religion. His facts and speculations will thus interest a large and valuable class of readers, while to some few of another class a certain suspicion of prosiness will be distasteful. The volume is well prepared, and we are sure that the manly, generous sentiments of the writer will be welcomed by a large number of personal friends, and by a discriminating public.