PREFACE.

GREAT BRITAIN and the United States have always had a keen mutual interest in each other's affairs; too often, however, not according to knowledge. If the 'Lives of American Presidents' add even a little to the sum total of knowledge in this country about the greatest Republic in the world, this book will not have altogether missed its aim. It is no part of its object to supply a history of America, still less an account of American politics; it seeks simply to show what manner of men the most famous American Presidents have been, by giving short narratives of their lives. Five have been selected for that purpose; and brief summaries of the lives of the remaining sixteen Presidents have been added, so as to show whence they sprang, and what course has brought each to his high honour. Politics have been as lightly touched upon as was possible in