Page:Salem - a tale of the seventeenth century (IA taleseventeenth00derbrich).pdf/10

 *enteenth century, should not be suffered to sink into oblivion. We know, indeed, that the more practiced hand of an able and faithful historian has already put it upon record in a masterly way, and in so doing has made a rich and valuable contribution to our national literature. But these books, though deeply interesting, are too valuable and too weighty to be found in free circulation among general readers; and we have been surprised to find how very vague and incorrect was the knowledge of this subject in many cultivated persons who were well-informed on other matters of history.

We have endeavored with careful hand to retouch the rapidly fading picture—to call up again to view the scenes and actors of those terrible times; and if in so doing we have ventured "to twine round history's legends dim the glowing roses of romance," it was only to heighten the effect of the picture, and to enable us to give a clearer idea