To the PUBLIC

I have observed that when a new book begins to make any noise in the world, as I am pretty certain this will do, every one is desirous of becoming acquainted with the author; and this impatience increases the more, the more he endeavours to conceal himself. – I expect to hear an hundred different names inscribed to the Invisible, – some of which I should, perhaps, be proud of, others as much ashamed to own. – Some will doubtless take me for a philosopher, – others for a fool; – with some I shall pass for a man of pleasure, – with others for a stoic; – some will look upon me as a courtier, – others as a patriot; – but whether I am any one of these, or whether I am even a man or a woman, they will find it, after all their conjectures, as difficult to discover as the longitude.

I think it therefore a duty incumbent on my good-nature to put an early stop to such fruitless inquisitions, and also at the same time to satisfy, in some measure, the curiosity of the public, by giving an account of the means by which I attained the Gift of Invisibility I possess.

Know then, gentle reader, that in the former part of my life it was my good fortune to do a signal service to a certain venerable person since dead: – he was descended from the ancient Magi of the Chaldeans, inherited their wisdom, and was well versed in all the mystic secrets of their art: – besides his gratitude for the good office I had done him, he seem'd to have found something in my humour and manner of behaviour that extremely pleased him; – he would often have me with him, and entertain'd me with discourses on things which otherwise I should not have had the least idea of.