[Footnote 1:  “A reverend aspect, and a countenance formed to command, have power to restrain some people; while others, who pay no regard to those, are prevailed upon by the dint of writing, and the authority of a great name.” [T.S.]]

[Footnote 2:  I.e. 1710-11. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 3:  Gilles Menage (1613-1692).  The story is given in “Menagiana” (vol. ii. pp. 49-51, second edition, 1695).  C. Sorel, however, in his “Francion” (1623) tells a similar story of a poet named Saluste, who was fooled in like manner. [T.S.]]

[Footnote 4:  Morphew’s “Tatler” for January 13th, 1710 (No. 276), contains the following:  “Whereas an advertisement was yesterday delivered out by the author of the late ‘Female Tatler,’ insinuating, [according to his custom] that he is Isaac Bickerstaff Esq.; This is to give notice, that this paper is continued to be sold by John Morphew as formerly,” etc.

“The Female Tatler, by Mrs. Crackenthorpe, a Lady that knows every thing,” had been begun July 8th, 1709, but was now defunct. [T.S.]]

THE TATLER, No. 5.

——­Laceratque, trahitque Molle pecus VIR.[1]

FROM TUESDAY JAN. 23.  TO SATURDAY JAN. 27. 1710.[2]

Amongst other severities I have met with from some critics, the cruellest for an old man is, that they will not let me be at quiet in my bed, but pursue me to my very dreams.  I must not dream but when they please, nor upon long continued subjects, however visionary in their own natures; because there is a manifest moral quite through them, which to produce as a dream is improbable and unnatural.  The pain I might have had from this objection, is prevented by considering they have missed another, against which I should have been at a loss to defend myself.  They should have asked me, whether the dreams I publish can properly be called Lucubrations, which is the name I have given to all my papers, whether in volumes or half-sheets:  so manifest a contradiction in terminis, that I wonder no sophister ever thought of it:  But the other is a cavil.  I remember when I was a boy at school, I have often dreamed out the whole passages of a day; that I rode a journey, baited, supped, went to bed, and rose the next morning:  and I have known young ladies who could dream a whole contexture of adventures in one night large enough to make a novel.  In youth the imagination is strong, not mixed with cares, nor tinged with those passions that most disturb and confound it, such as avarice, ambition, and many others.  Now as old men are said to grow children again, so in this article of dreaming, I am returned to my childhood.  My imagination is at full ease, without care, avarice, or ambition, to clog it; by which, among many others, I have this advantage of doubling the small remainder of my time, and living four-and-twenty hours in the day.  However, the dream I am now going to relate, is as wild as can well be imagined, and adapted to please these refiners upon sleep, without any moral that I can discover.