John Bright has always shown himself a staunch friend to the prosperity of the United States.  Whenever an opportunity offered in which to propose this country as an example worthy of the imitation of his own countrymen, he has never failed to urge the superiority of our system.  His political ideas, approaching to republicanism, and abhorring the dominance of hereditary aristocrats, and a political Church, have found their theories realized in the admirable machinery of our own government.  Untainted with that jealous prejudice which appears to animate many of his fellow-citizens, he can discern, and is ready to acknowledge, the superior efficacy of the principles which underlie our Constitution.  No one has, of late, been more earnest in denunciation of the irritating policy of Great Britain toward America, than Mr. Bright.

His personal appearance is that of a hearty, good-natured, and yet determined Englishman, and both his form and face betoken the John Bull as much as any member of the House.  His morals are of a high order, his honesty proverbial, his courage undoubted, his social character amiable, and calculated to make him welcome to every circle.  It is said, that although opposed in the extreme to the political doctrines of Lord Derby, his personal relations with that aristocratic nobleman are not only friendly, but intimate; and that, after abusing one another lustily at Westminster, they retire together arm in arm, chatting and laughing as familiarly as if there never had been the least difference of opinion between them.  Like Fox, in this particular, he never allows his partisan views to interfere with his social relations; and although he is a fierce and bitter antagonist on the benches of Parliament, no one is a more constant or a more zealous friend in private life.  His efforts have always been enlisted in behalf of the education of the masses; conceiving that this is the foundation of a thoroughly popular political system, such as he is desirous to introduce into the British Constitution.  Bred among a timid and peaceful sect, his opposition to wars has been determined and earnest; and he was one of those who, in 1854, sent a deputation to the Emperor Nicholas to urge an abandonment of his war policy, and the maintenance of peace, as the duty of a Christian race.  He is, however, rather fitted to be a reformer and agitator than a statesman.  He has all that enthusiasm, all that energy, all that courage, all that stubborn perseverance in the pursuit of his purpose, which distinguish the characters of those men who have conducted the great revolutions of society to a successful issue.  Perhaps he would be found deficient in judging how far to proceed in innovation; but this, though an important, is not an essential element in the composition of the mere reformer.  It is for him to lead on the people to great and startling changes, to overturn tyrannies, to break down old forms, to inculcate novel precepts, to regenerate public sentiment.  These rather