forever the chair of the husband and the
father.

We can say nothing to assuage the poignant grief of the widow and
children, but our hearts are filled with the fervent prayer that
Heaven's choicest blessings may be showered upon them.

ADDRESS OF MR. HERBERT, OF ALABAMA.

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 gen