----My way is ever to point out to the curious, different tracts of investigation, to come at the first springs of the events I tell; --not with a pedantic _Fescue_, --or in the decisive manner of _Tacitus_, who outwits himself and his reader; --but with the officious humility of a heart devoted to the assistance merely of the inquisitive; --to them I write, ----and by them I shall be read, ----if any such reading as this could be supposed to hold out so long, --to the very end of the world.

- I do not say this for a fact: I merely point out different paths of investigation, in order to find the first springs of the events I tell; - not like the decisive Tacitus, who outwits himself and his reader, but with the humility of a heart devoted to aiding the inquisitive; to them I write - and by them I shall be read, to the very end of the world.
