outh of his country. In every
post of honor or trust to which he was called--and they were many and
exalted ones--he met his engagements with such fidelity and courage as
never to incur censure and seldom provoke criticism.

His bearing as a private citizen was of such dignity and benevolence as
to secure the love, while it evoked the admiration, of all who knew him.

His character was made up of blended chivalry and courtesy and adorned
with the mild luster of a religious faith.

He was frank and open, plain and sincere, speaking only what he thought
without reserve, and promising only what he designed to perform.

As he was plain and sincere, so he was firm and steady in his purposes;
courteous and affable, he was not influenced by servile compliance to
his company, approving or condemning as might be most agreeable to them.
He was a man of courage and constancy, qualities which, after all, are
the ornaments and defense of a man.

He had in the highest degree the air, manners, and address of a man of
quality; politeness with ease, dignity without pride, and firmness
without the least alloy of roughness. He loved refined society, but he
had great respect and sympathy for those who had been reared in simple
habits and the toils of life.

He possessed an even and equal temper of mind. Those who best knew him
can testify of him what has often been asserted of his great father,
that they never heard an acrimonious speech fall from his lips; that his
whole temper was so controlled by justice and generosity that he was
never known to disparage with an envious breath the fame of another or
to withhold due praise of another's worth.

Mr. President, the friends of Gen. LEE do not claim for him brilliant
talents and the gifts of genius. It is doubtless a beneficent ordination
of Providence that the best interests of society are not solely
dependent on what in common parlance is called genius. Fortunately for
the good of mankind, great gifts and powers of mind are not
indispensable to our happiness or to a safe and salutary development of
social conditions.

Patient industry and impregnable virtue are the essential cardinal
qualities that make the man, in the vast majority of cases, worthy of
love and honor, and which conserve the best interests of the world.

That man who in his career and relations to society has gone on from day
to day and from trust to trust, never disappointing but always realizing
every just expec