’I forbear recommending my Advice upon many other Accounts, till I hear how you and your Readers relish what I have already said, among whom if there be any that may pretend it is useless to them, because they never dream at all, there may be others, perhaps, who do little else all Day long.  Were every one as sensible as I am what happens to him in his Sleep, it would be no Dispute whether we past so considerable a Portion of our Time in the Condition of Stocks and Stones, or whether the Soul were not perpetually at Work upon the Principle of Thought.  However, ’tis an honest Endeavour of mine to perswade my Countrymen to reap some Advantage from so many unregarded Hours, and as such you will encourage it.

  ’I shall conclude with giving you a Sketch or two of my Way of
  proceeding.

’If I have any Business of consequence to do to-morrow, I am scarce dropt asleep to-night but I am in the midst of it, and when awake I consider the whole Procession of the Affair, and get the Advantage of the next Day’s Experience before the Sun has risen upon it.

’There is scarce a great Post but what I have some Time or other been in; but my Behaviour while I was Master of a College, pleases me so well, that whenever there is a Province of that Nature vacant, I intend to step in as soon as I can.

  ’I have done many Things that would not pass Examination, when I have
  had the Art of Flying, or being invisible; for which Reason I am glad
  I am not possessed of those extra-ordinary Qualities.

’Lastly, Mr. SPECTATOR, I have been a great Correspondent of yours, and have read many of my Letters in your Paper which I never wrote you.  If you have a Mind I should really be so, I have got a Parcel of Visions and other Miscellanies in my Noctuary, which I shall send you to enrich your Paper with on proper Occasions.

  I am, &c.

  John Shadow.

  Oxford, Aug. 20.

[Footnote 1:  John Byrom, born at Manchester, in 1691, was quarrelled with by his family for marrying a young lady without fortune, and lived by an ingenious way of teaching short-hand, till the death of an elder brother gave him the family estate.  He died in 1763.  In 1714 he had just been elected Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.  In 1723 he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society, and contributed to its Transactions a paper upon his own System of short-hand.  In his later years he wrote much rhyme.]

* * * * *

No. 587.  Monday, August 30, 1714.  John Byrom.

  ‘—­Intus, et in Cute novi—­’

  Pers.

Tho’ the Author of the following Vision is unknown to me, I am apt to think it may be the Work of that ingenious Gentleman, who promised me, in the last Paper, some Extracts out of his Noctuary.