’Quorum aemulari exoptat negligentiam
  Potius, quam istorum obscuram diligentiam.’

A Critick may have the same Consolation in the ill Success of his Play, as Dr. South tells us a Physician has at the Death of a Patient, That he was killed secundum artem.  Our inimitable Shakespear is a Stumbling-Block to the whole Tribe of these rigid Criticks.  Who would not rather read one of his Plays, where there is not a single Rule of the Stage observed, than any Production of a modern Critick, where there is not one of them violated? Shakespear was indeed born with all the Seeds of Poetry, and may be compared to the Stone in Pyrrhus’s Ring, which, as Pliny tells us, had the Figure of Apollo and the Nine Muses in the Veins of it, produced by the spontaneous Hand of Nature, without any Help from Art.

[Footnote 1:  John Dennis’s invention, of which he said with exultation, ‘That’s my thunder.’]

* * * * *

No. 593.  Monday, September 13, 1714.  Byrom.

  ’Quale per incertam Lunam sub luce maligna
  Est iter in Sylvis:—­’

  Virg.

My dreaming Correspondent, Mr. Shadow, has sent me a second Letter, with several curious Observations on Dreams in general, and the Method to render Sleep improving:  An Extract of his Letter will not, I presume, be disagreeable to my Readers.

’Since we have so little Time to spare, that none of it may be lost, I see no Reason why we should neglect to examine those imaginary Scenes we are presented with in Sleep, only because they have less Reality in them than our waking Meditations.  A Traveller would bring his Judgment in Question who should despise the Directions of his Map for want of real Roads in it, because here stands a Dott instead of a Town, or a Cypher instead of a City, and it must be a long Day’s Journey to travel thro’ two or three Inches.  Fancy in Dreams gives us much such another Landskip of Life as that does of Countries, and tho’ its Appearances may seem strangely jumbled together, we may often observe such Traces and Footsteps of noble Thoughts, as, if carefully pursued, might lead us into a proper Path of Action.  There is so much Rapture and Extasie in our fancied Bliss, and something so dismal and shocking in our fancied Misery, that tho’ the Inactivity of the Body has given Occasion for calling Sleep the Image of Death, the Briskness of the Fancy affords us a strong Intimation of something within us that can never die.

  ’I have wondered, that Alexander the Great, who came into the World
  sufficiently dreamt of by his Parents, and had himself a tolerable
  Knack at dreaming, should often say, that

    ‘Sleep was one thing which made him sensible he was Mortal.’