Excerpt from The First of the Knickerbockers: A Tale of 1673 Much wit has been expended upon prefaces; and it has sometimes happened that a Whole string of brilliants, constituting, perhaps, an author's chief stock in trade, has been ostenta tiously displayed at the door, as it were, of his book, luring the unsuspecting reader within, only to find that the interior of the edifice had been despoiled to ornament the vestibule. Such introductions may be compared to a large fire, lighted at the mouth of a cavern, which serves only to reveal the darkness within. Their writers, if yet another metaphor may be allowed, are like clocks at meridian they first strike twelve, and afterwards preserve a low and monotonous ticking. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.