I have here set downe, kinde Reader, not onely all usuall feates that either my selfe have seene or heard of, but divers others also which I am sure were never in print, nor as yet performed by any I could ever heare of except my selfe, and all to give thee thy full content: and take thus much from me, If thou rightly understand this, there is not a tricke that any Iugler in the world can shew thee, but thou shalt bee able to conceive after what manner it is performed, if he do it by slight of hand, and not by an unlawfull and detested means. That there are such it is not to be doubted of, that do worke by unlawfull meanes, and have besides their owne natural endowments the assistance of some familiar, whereby they many times effect such miraculous things as may well be admired by whom soever shall either behold or heare tell of them. I could give an instance in one whose father while he lived was the greatest Iugler in England, and used the assistance of a familiar; he lived a Tinker by trade, and used his feates as a trade by the by; he lived, as I was informed, alwayes betotterd, and dyed, for ought I could heare, in the same estate. I could here, as I have instanced in this man, so give you his name, and where he liveth, but because he hath left the bad way, and chose the better, because he hath amended his life, and betooke himselfe to an honest calling, I will rather reioyce at his good, then do him any the least disgrace by naming him to have beene such a one. If here be any aske my name, let them know I am not bound to tell them. If they aske why I have writ this pamphlet, Tis to delight them: let them excuse me for the one, and thanke me for the other: and it may be, if time will give so much leasure, I shall hereafter spend my wits upon some better subiect.
FINIS.
Transcriber's Notes
The book from which this e-text was transcribed bears the inscription "Bequest of Harry Houdini April 1927".
The Library of Congress Online Catalog lists Harper as author of this work, however WorldCat lists the book as printed by Thomas Harper for Ralph Mab. It seems that Mab was a stationer (arguably the publisher) and Harper the printer, not the author.
Irregular spelling, capitalisation and hyphenation are as per the original. Spacing around punctuation has been regularised. Unclear or missing punctuation corrected without note. Long-s in the original replaced with regular s. Illustrations have been moved to the nearest sentence break i.e. period, colon or semi-colon. Missing letters have been restored as follows:
"The Definition, or description of the Operator" [T in "The" added] Likely printers errors were noted as follows but not corrected: "should churme for butter, and" ["churme" should be "churne"?] "quantitie of linfoyl and quicksilver" and "put your linfoyl in a crucible" ["linfoyl" should be "tinfoyl"?]
"Then say thus, they swallow puddings" [p in "pudding" added]
"moment therefore be quick" [f in "therefore" added]
"and called The decollation of Iohn Baptist"