“Your notions to me appear just,” replied Mangogul: “why do you not publish them? they may contribute to the progress of divination by dreams, an important science, which was much cultivated two thousand years ago; and has since been too much neglected. Another advantage of your system is, that it would not fail throwing light on several works, both ancient and modern, which are but a string of dreams; such as Plato’s treatise of ideas, the fragments of Hermes Trismegistus, the literary paradoxes of father Harduin, the Newton, the optic of colours, and the universal mathematics of a certain Bramin. For example, would you not inform us, Mr. Conjurer, what Orcotomus had seen in the daytime, when he dream’d his Hypothesis; what father C⁠⸺ had dreamt, when he set about constructing his organ of colours; and what was Cleobulus’s dream, when he composed his tragedy?”

“With a little meditation, Sir,” answered Bloculocus, “I might compass all that: but I reserve these nice phenomena for the time, when I shall put out my translation of Philoxenus, for which I beseech your highness to grant me the privilege.”