LEXINGTON, KY.

At the meeting at Lexington, resolutions were adopted similar to those already given.  The meeting was addressed by General Preston and others.

GENERAL W. PRESTON.

“I am permitted to accompany the report with a few remarks, although I deem it unnecessary to use one word of commendation on the character of such a man.  These resolutions are no doubt very short, but they will testify the feelings of every right-minded, noble-hearted man, no matter what may have been his opinions as to the past.  Every true and generous soul feels that these resolutions are expressive of the sorrow entertained by the whole country.  We speak not only the common voice of America, but of the world at this hour.  It is no ordinary case of eulogy over an ordinary being, but over one who was the man of the century; a man who, by mighty armies commanded with admirable skill; by great victories achieved, and yet never stained by exultation; by mighty misfortunes met with a calm eye, and submitted to with all the dignity that belongs to elevated intelligence, and by his simplicity and grandeur, challenged the admiration of civilized mankind; and still more remarkable, after yielding to the greatest vicissitudes that the world ever saw, resigned himself to the improvement of the youth of the country, to the last moment of his mortal life, looking to the glorious life which he contemplated beyond the tomb.  I must confess that, notwithstanding the splendor and glory of his career, I envy him the dignity of the pacific close of his life.  Nothing more gentle, nothing more great, nothing more uncomplaining, has ever been recorded in the history of the world.  By returning to Napoleon, we find he murmured, we find all the marks of mortality and mortal anger; but in Lee we find a man perfect in Christian principles—­dignified, yet simple.

“I knew him first when he was a captain.  I was then a young man connected with one of the regiments of this State, in Mexico, the Fourth Kentucky; and when I first saw him he was a man of extreme physical beauty, remarkable for his great gentleness of manner, and for his freedom from all military and social vices.  At that time, General Scott, by common consent, had fixed upon General Lee as the man who would make his mark if ever the country needed his services.  He never swore an oath, he never drank, he never wrangled, but there was not a single dispute between gentlemen that his voice was not more potent than any other; his rare calmness, serenity, and dignity, were above all.  When the war came on, he followed his native State, Virginia, for he was the true representative of the great Virginia family at Washington.  He was the real type of his race.  He was possessed of all the most perfect points of Washington’s character, with all the noble traits of his own.