A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty, by Dietrich | Page 9

legends, letters, and other
documents have I likewise gleaned in my researches among the family
chests and lumber garrets of our respectable Dutch citizens; and I have
gathered a host of well-authenticated traditions from divers excellent
old ladies of my acquaintance, who requested that their names might
not be mentioned. Nor must I neglect to acknowledge how greatly I
have been assisted by that admirable and praiseworthy institution, the
New York Historical Society, to which I here publicly return my
sincere acknowledgments.
In the conduct, of this inestimable work I have adopted no individual
model, but, on the contrary, have simply contented myself with
combining and concentrating the excellences of the most approved
ancient historians. Like Xenophon, I have maintained the utmost
impartiality, and the strictest adherence to truth throughout my history.
I have enriched it, after the manner of Sallust, with various characters
of ancient worthies, drawn at full length and faithfully colored. I have
seasoned it with profound political speculations like Thucydides,
sweetened it with the graces of sentiment like Tacitus, and infused into
the whole the dignity, the grandeur and magnificence of Livy.
I am aware that I shall incur the censure of numerous very learned and
judicious critics for indulging too frequently in the bold excursive
manner of my favorite Herodotus. And, to be candid, I have found it
impossible always to resist the allurements of those pleasing episodes,
which, like flowery banks and fragrant bowers, beset the dusty road of
the historian, and entice him to turn aside, and refresh himself from his
wayfaring. But I trust it will be found that I have always resumed my
staff, and addressed myself to my weary journey with renovated spirits,
so that both my readers and myself have been benefited by the
relaxation.

Indeed, though it has been my constant wish and uniform endeavor to
rival Polybius himself, in observing the requisite unity of History, yet
the loose and unconnected manner in which many of the facts herein
recorded have come to hand rendered such an attempt extremely
difficult. This difficulty was likewise increased by one of the grand
objects contemplated in my work, which was to trace the rise of sundry
customs and institutions in these best of cities, and to compare them,
when in the germ of infancy, with what they are in the present old age
of knowledge and improvement.
But the chief merit on which I value myself, and found my hopes for
future regard, is that faithful veracity with which I have compiled this
invaluable little work; carefully winnowing away the chaff of
hypothesis, and discarding the tares of fable, which are too apt to spring
up and choke the seeds of truth and wholesome knowledge. Had I been
anxious to captivate the superficial throng, who skim like swallows
over the surface of literature; or had I been anxious to commend my
writings to the pampered palates of literary epicures, I might have
availed myself of the obscurity that overshadows the infant years of our
city, to introduce a thousand pleasing fictions. But I have scrupulously
discarded many a pithy tale and marvelous adventure, whereby the
drowsy ear of summer indolence might be enthralled; jealously
maintaining that fidelity, gravity, and dignity which should ever
distinguish the historian. "For a writer of this class," observes an
elegant critic, "must sustain the character of a wise man writing for the
instruction of posterity; one who has studied to inform himself well,
who has pondered his subject with care, and addresses himself to our
judgment rather than to our imagination."
Thrice happy, therefore, is this our renowned city, in having incidents
worthy of swelling the theme of history; and doubly thrice happy is it
in having such an historian as myself to relate them. For, after all,
gentle reader, cities of themselves, and, in fact, empires of themselves,
are nothing without an historian. It is the patient narrator who records
their prosperity as they rise--who blazons forth the splendor of their
noontide meridian--who props their feeble memorials as they totter to
decay--who gathers together their scattered fragments as they rot--and

who piously, at length, collects their ashes into the mausoleum of his
work, and rears a triumphant monument to transmit their renown to all
succeeding ages.
What has been the fate of many fair cities of antiquity, whose nameless
ruins encumber the plains of Europe and Asia, and awaken the fruitless
inquiry of the traveler? They have sunk into dust and silence--they have
perished from remembrance for want of a historian! The philanthropist
may weep over their desolation--the poet may wander among their
mouldering arches and broken columns, and indulge the visionary
flights of his fancy--but alas! alas! the modern historian, whose pen,
like my own, is doomed to confine itself to dull matter of fact, seeks