Excerpt from Holland HouseUnpretending as I intend this book to be, I cannot yet send it before the world without an acknow ledgment to those who have helped me, not only by collecting information, but by harder and drier work. When I thought the book well-nigh completed, I found it was necessary that many historical facts and quotations should be verified or checked.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis 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.