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of estimation in which he was held is furnished in an extract from the Quarterly Review, which, alluding to his visit some two years after, said:
"He presents, in his own person, a decisive proof that an American gentleman, without any official rank of widespread reputation, by mere dint of courtesy, candor, an appreciating spirit, and a cultivated mind, may be received on a perfect footing of equality in the best circles—social, political, and intellectual; which, he it observed, are hopelessly inaccessible to the itinerant note-taker, who never gets beyond the outskirts of the show-house."
From England, Mr. Sumner went to Paris, where a like cordial and distinguished reception awaited him. During his stay there he made himself familiar with the practice of the French law courts, attended the law schools, and the lectures of all the eminent professors in the different departments at the Sorbonne and the College of France, and closely followed the debates in the Chamber of Deputies, thus storing his mind with a range of parliamentary law and practice as wide and varied as his acquirements in purely legal learning. Gen. Cass was American Minister at the French Court while Mr. Sumner was in Paris, and it was at his request that the latter wrote his masterly defence of the American claim to the North-eastern boundary, which was widely copied at the time of its publication. From France to Italy, and from Italy to Germany, Mr. Sumner continued his travels, stopping long enough in both countries to study all that was best in literature, in art, and in public life, which they could furnish, and everywhere he was received with the same distinguished consideration. On an appreciative and cultured mind, such as Mr. Sumner's, three such years of travel and study spent in the society of men eminent in all departments of intellectual, social, and public life, and amid the historic associations of the Old World, had the most happy effect. He returned to his native city in 1840, with much added to that perfect education which it seemed his steadfast aim to attain. He resumed the practice of his profession, but scarcely seems to have given it his principle attention, preferring rather the leisurely study of the science and literature of the law. In 1643 he again resumed his position of lecturer at the Cambridge Law School, and the following two years issued his edition of Vesey's reports, in twenty volumes, a great work, conceived and executed in the happiest spirit. We now
