I am sensible, an Author should observe as proper Seasons for his Productions, as the skilful Husbandman or Florist for their Seeds; and I am of Opinion, I could not have presented this curious inquisitive Age, with a Work more admirably calculated, to amuse and employ their vast Knowledge and deep Reserches, and divert them from less useful, tho' more dangerous Enquiries, which they are of late so profoundly taken up with.
In the last place, my dear Reader, when I consider'd that the great Augustus, as Suetonius tells us, neither neglected his own nor other Mens Dreams, concerning himself or his Affairs, and consequently whatever related to his Country, or the whole World which was his Empire;[1] Somnia neque sua neque aliena de se negligebat are the Historian's Words when I read in the great Artimedorus, that it was the Custom of the Antients, that whatever any one had dreamt of the Publick, relating to the Commonwealth, he should publish either by the Voice of the common Crier, or by a written Table set up to the view of others;[2] moris antiqui suit, ut quicquid quisque de republica somniasset, illud vel Præconis voce, vel Pittacio, hoc
est,
