Lord John Russell is precisely the person calculated to fill a high official situation.  Well informed on all subjects, with an ardent love of his country, and an anxious desire to serve it, he has a sobriety of judgment and a strictness of principle that will for ever place him beyond the reach of suspicion, even to the most prejudiced of his political adversaries.  The reserve complained of by those who are only superficially acquainted with him, would be highly advantageous to a minister; for it would not only preserve him from the approaches to familiarity, so injurious to men in power, but would discourage the hopes founded on the facility of manner of those whose very smiles and simple acts of politeness are by the many looked on as an encouragement to form the most unreasonable ones, and as an excuse for the indulgence of angry feelings when those unreasonable hopes are frustrated.

Lord John Russell, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Luttrell, Monsieur Thiers, Monsieur Mignet, and Mr. Poulett Thomson, dined here yesterday.  The party was an agreeable one, and the guests seemed mutually pleased with each other.

Monsieur Thiers is a very remarkable person—­quick, animated, and observant:  nothing escapes him, and his remarks are indicative of a mind of great power.  I enjoy listening to his conversation, which is at once full of originality, yet free from the slightest shade of eccentricity.

Monsieur Mignet, who is the inseparable friend of Monsieur Thiers, reminds me every time I see him of Byron, for there is a striking likeness in the countenance.  With great abilities, Monsieur Mignet gives me the notion of being more fitted to a life of philosophical research and contemplation than of action, while Monsieur Thiers impresses me with the conviction of his being formed to fill a busy and conspicuous part in the drama of life.

He is a sort of modern Prometheus, capable of creating and of vivifying with the electric spark of mind; but, whether he would steal the fire from Heaven, or a less elevated region, I am not prepared to say.  He has called into life a body—­and a vast one—­by his vigorous writings, and has infused into it a spirit that will not be soon or easily quelled.  Whether that spirit will tend to the advancement of his country or not, time will prove; but, en attendant, its ebullitions may occasion as much trouble to the powers that be as did the spirit engendered by Mirabeau in a former reign.

The countenance of Monsieur Thiers is remarkable.  The eyes, even through his spectacles, flash with intelligence, and the expression of his face varies with every sentiment he utters.  Thiers is a man to effect a revolution, and Mignet would be the historian to narrate it.