Thus I have endeavoured to assert nothing but what I had good authority for; which in regard of some circumstances, would have been yet far more difficult after the expiration of some years: for now time gave opportunity to be informed of many things, which some ancient people had yet remembrance of, and which after their decease perhaps would have been buried in oblivion. I cannot well omit here publicly to acknowledge the signal kindness and diligence of my well-beloved and much esteemed friend Theodore Ecclestone, of London, who hath furnished me with abundance of materials, not only very useful, but also absolutely necessary for the compiling of this work: from him I had intelligence on that account, and have exchanged a multitude of letters. And thus by a long continued correspondence I came to be acquainted with many things and circumstances, which after some years might have been more difficult to obtain. Add to this, that I have described several things well known to me, which few besides myself within these thirty or forty years had better knowledge of. I have also mentioned several remarkable cases, which I noted down from the mouths of credible persons who have been dead many years, and thought not that at any time I should have published them in print. In the meanwhile I took account of what seemed to me worthy to be left upon record, and collected a great quantity of books, wherein many occurrences mentioned in this history were related. Of such kind of relations and accounts I have made use of, without taking from thence all that was remarkable; for it hath not been for want of matter that this history hath not run out further, since I could have made it thrice as big, if I had been minded so to do. But as I was unwilling to extend my work any further than my strength and health in all probability should permit, so I would not glut my reader with many things of one and the same nature: but have endeavoured by variety of matter, to quicken his appetite; and therefore have intermixed the serious part sometimes with a facetious accident.