Among the many pretended Arts of Divination, there is none which so universally amuses as that by Dreams.  I have indeed observ’d in a late Speculation, that there have been sometimes, upon very extraordinary Occasions, supernatural Revelations made to certain Persons by this means; but as it is the chief Business of this Paper to root out popular Errors, I must endeavour to expose the Folly and Superstition of those Persons, who, in the common and ordinary course of Life, lay any stress upon things of so uncertain, shadowy, and chimerical a nature.  This I cannot do more effectually than by the following Letter, which is dated from a Quarter of the Town that has always been the Habitation of some prophetick Philomath; it having been usual, time out of Mind, for all such People as have lost their Wits, to resort to that Place either for their Cure [1] or for their Instruction.

  Moor-Fields, Oct. 4, 1712.

  Mr.  SPECTATOR,

’Having long consider’d whether there be any Trade wanting in this great City, after having survey’d very attentively all kinds of Ranks and Professions, I do not find in any Quarter of the Town an Oneirocritick, or, in plain English, an Interpreter of Dreams.  For want of so useful a Person, there are several good People who are very much puzled in this Particular, and dream a whole Year together without being ever the wiser for it.  I hope I am pretty well qualify’d for this Office, having studied by Candlelight all the Rules of Art which have been laid down upon this Subject.  My great Uncle by my Wife’s Side was a Scotch Highlander, and second-sighted.  I have four Fingers and two Thumbs upon one Hand, and was born on the longest Night of the Year.  My Christian and Sir-Name begin and end with the same Letters.  I am lodg’d in Moorfields, in a House that for these fifty years has been always tenanted by a Conjurer.

’If you had been in Company, so much as my self, with ordinary Women of the Town, you must know that there are many of them who every day in their Lives, upon seeing or hearing of any thing that is unexpected, cry, My Dream is out; and cannot go to sleep in quiet the next night, till something or other has happen’d which has expounded the Visions of the preceding one.  There are others who are in very great pain for not being able to recover the Circumstances of a Dream, that made strong Impressions upon them while it lasted.  In short, Sir, there are many whose waking Thoughts are wholly employ’d on their sleeping ones.  For the benefit therefore of this curious and inquisitive Part of my Fellow-Subjects, I shall in the first place tell those Persons what they dreamt of, who fancy they never dream at all.  In the next place, I shall make out any Dream, upon hearing a single Circumstance of it; and in the last place, shall expound to them the good or bad Fortune which such Dreams portend.  If they do