by this thirst for knowledge, I have carried my researches into the
mysterious works of nature farther than the generality of my
contemporaries, and for the benefit of posterity have rescued from
oblivion the remarkable events of my own times. But this object
was not to be secured without an indefatigable, though at the same
time an agreeable, exertion; for an accurate investigation of every
particular is attended with much difficulty. It is difficult to
produce an orderly account of the investigation and discovery of
truth; it is difficult to preserve from the beginning to the end a
connected relation unbroken by irrelevant matter; and it is
difficult to render the narration no less elegant in the diction,
than instructive in its matter, for in prosecuting the series of
events, the choice of happy expressions is equally perplexing, as
the search after them painful. Whatever is written requires the
most intense thought, and every expression should be carefully
polished before it be submitted to the public eye; for, by exposing
itself to the examination of the present and of future ages, it
must necessarily undergo the criticism not only of the acute, but
also of the dissatisfied, reader. Words merely uttered are soon
forgotten, and the admiration or disgust which they occasioned is
no more; but writings once published are never lost, and remain as
lasting memorials either of the glory or of the disgrace of the
author. Hence the observation of Seneca, that the malicious
attention of the envious reader dwells with no less satisfaction on
a faulty than on an elegant expression, and is as anxious to
discover what it may ridicule, as what it may commend; as the poet
also observes:


"Discit enim citius meminitque libentius illud