How are we going to proceed with this book? Are we going to bewilder the reader by mazes of historic puzzles, or do we intend to make the "Waterford Guide" simple, interesting, comprehensive, truthful? Yes, this latter idea should be the pleasantest course, gliding us over the cruxes and cross purposes of musty chronicles, and inciting us to give a "wide berth', to quarrelling historians, while we dip into the brimful fount of knowledge available, respecting the County of Waterford, taking all the pure unadulterated portion with us, leaving the dregs to be disputed over by those who revel in such congenial employment. But while we carry with us the glories, the traditions, the leading time-marks of the past, we must make it our duty to bind those haloed materials to the facts and dry circumstances of the present, with such links as we seek to make imperceptive, from the smoothness and pleasantness in which we hope to invest them.
