BY
J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

_Tenth Edition_

Electrotyped and Printed by J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U




THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED
TO
WILLIAM F. HAVEMEYER,

IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THE INDEBTEDNESS OF THE AUTHOR TO HIS COLLECTION
OF
WASHINGTONIANA.



+Note+

In every country boasting a history there may be observed a tendency to
make its leaders or great men superhuman. Whether we turn to the legends
of the East, the folk-lore of Europe, or the traditions of the native
races of America, we find a mythology based upon the acts of man gifted
with superhuman powers. In the unscientific, primeval periods in which
these beliefs were born and elaborated into oral and written form, their
origin is not surprising. But to all who have studied the creation of a
mythology, no phase is a more curious one than that the keen, practical