Mr. SPEAKER:  In this brief tribute to the memory of Gen. WILLIAM H.F.  LEE I should be unworthy of the friendship which it was my privilege to claim did I indulge in anything else than the language of soberness and truth.  In him there was no manner of affectation; he pretended to be nothing but such as he was, and it is certain that if he had been giving directions to his biographer he would have laid down the rule announced by Thomas Carlyle, in his review of the life of Lockhart, that the biographer in the treatment of his subject “should have the fear of God before his eyes and no other fear whatever.”

Froude, as biographer, claims subsequently to have applied to the life of Carlyle his own rule; and all the world knows that in the portrayal of Carlyle’s faults of character the biographer left many a sting in the hearts of those who had loved the great man while he lived and who felt that the failings on which the historian had dwelt ought to have been interred with his bones.  The biographer who shall perform faithfully the task of writing the life of “ROONEY” LEE will not paint him as a genius like Carlyle; but, sir, if there was any single feature in the character of our friend that, laid bare to the world even by the bold hand of an Anthony Froude, would cause the faintest blush to tinge the cheek of family or friends, I, who knew him well, do not know what it was.

It is true, sir, that it was not my fortune to be thrown in contact with him in the earlier years of his life.  I did not know him when his character was being shaped and molded by the generous and refining influences which surrounded him from his cradle to his manhood.

My personal acquaintance with him may be said to have begun only when he had taken his seat by my side in this Hall.  But his fame had come before him.  A representative of the most distinguished family in America, he had been, by this circumstance alone, conspicuous from his birth; and yet he came among us with not a spot upon his name.

During the civil war, from a subordinate position rising rapidly to high command and always in the bright light that surrounded him as a son of the most illustrious general of modern times, he bore himself as a soldier without reproach.  Neither in civil life nor in war had calumny assaulted him.  Such a man, entering here upon a new career, attracted attention the moment he came into this Hall.

It soon appeared to those who watched him closely that he was singularly modest.  This modesty was not diffidence.  He was at all times self-poised.  On this floor, addressing himself to a public question just as in a private conversation among his friends, he always had the easy, unpretentious manner of the thoroughbred gentleman, but his modesty was easily apparent in an utter lack of self-assertion.  He never put himself forward except when duty prompted, and then he did nothing for display; never a word did he speak for himself, but only for his cause.