It will not be inappropriate to reproduce here the tribute which appeared in the London Standard, on the receipt of the news of General Lee’s illness: 

THE STANDARD.

“The announcement that General R.E.  Lee has been struck down by paralysis and is not expected to recover, will be received, even at this crisis, with universal interest, and will everywhere excite a sympathy and regret which testify to the deep impression made on the world at large by his character and achievements.  Few are the generals who have earned, since history began, a greater military reputation; still fewer are the men of similar eminence, civil or military, whose personal qualities would bear comparison with his.  The bitterest enemies of his country hardly dared to whisper a word against the character of her most distinguished general, while neutrals regarded him with an admiration for his deeds and a respect for his lofty and unselfish nature which almost grew into veneration, and his own countrymen learned to look up to him with as much confidence and esteem as they ever felt for Washington, and with an affection which the cold demeanor and austere temper of Washington could never inspire.  The death of such a man, even at a moment so exciting as the present, when all thoughts are absorbed by a nearer and present conflict, would be felt as a misfortune by all who still retain any recollection of the interest with which they watched the Virginian campaigns, and by thousands who have almost forgotten the names of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, the Wilderness and Spottsylvania.  By the South it would be recognized as a national calamity—­as the loss of a man not only inexpressibly dear to an unfortunate people by his intimate association with their fallen hopes and their proudest recollections, but still able to render services such as no other man could perform, and to give counsel whose value is enhanced tenfold by the source from which it comes.  We hope, even yet, that a life so honorable and so useful, so pure and noble in itself, so valuable to a country that has much need of men like him, may be spared and prolonged for further enjoyment of domestic peace and comfort, for further service to his country; we cannot bear to think of a career so singularly admirable and so singularly unfortunate, should close so soon and so sadly.  By the tens of thousands who will feel as we do when they read the news that now lies before us, may be measured the impressions made upon the world by the life and the deeds of the great chief of the Army of Virginia.

“Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the merits of the generals against whom he had to contend, and especially of the antagonist by whom he was at last overcome, no one pretending to understand in the least either the general principles of military science or the particular conditions of the American War, doubts that General Lee gave higher proofs of military genius and soldiership than any of his opponents.