A DIƲRNAL-Maker is the Sub-almoner of Hi­story, Queene Mabbs Register; one, whom by the same figure that a North-Country Pedler is a Mer­chant-man, you may style an Au­thor: It is the like over-reach of language, when every thin tinder-cloaked Quack must be call'd a [Page 2]Doctor; when a Clumsy Cobler usurps the attribute of our English Peeres, and is vamp'd a Translator, list him a Writer and you smother Geoffry in swabber-slops, the very name of Dabbler over-sets him, he is swallowed up in the praise like Sir Samuel Luke in a great Saddle, no­thing to be seene but the giddy Fea­ther in his Crowne. They call him a Mercury, but he becomes the Epi­thet; like the little Nergo mounted on the Elephant, just such another blot-rampant. He has not stuffings sufficient for the reproach of a Scri­bler, but it hangs about him like an old-wives skin, when the flesh hath forsaken her, lank and loose. Hee defames a good title as well as most of our moderne Noble-men, those Wennes of greatnesse, the body po­liticks most peccant humours, blistred into Lords. Hee hath so raw-bon'd [Page 3]a Being, that however you render him, he rubbes it out, and makes ragges of the expression. The silly Country-man (who seeing an Ape in a scarlet coat, blest his young wor­ship, and gave his Landlord joy of the hopes of his house) did not slan­der his Complement with worse ap­plication, than he that names this shred an Historian. To call him an Historian, is to Knight a Man-drake, 'tis to view him through a prespe­ctive, and by that grosse Hyperbole to give the reputation of an Engineer, to a maker of Mouse-traps. Such an Hi­storian would hardly pass muster with a Scotch Stationer in a sieve full of Ballads and godly Books. He would not serve for the breast plate of a begging Graecian. The most crampt Compendium that the age hath seene since all learning was torne into ends, out-strips him by the head: I have [Page 4]heard of puppets that could prattle in a Play, but never saw of their wri­tings before. There goes a report of the Holland women, that together with their children, they are delive­red of a Sooterkin; not unlike to a Rat, which some imagine to be the Off-spring of the Stooves: I know not what ignis fatuus adulterates the Presse, but it seemes much after that fashion, else how could this Vermin think to be a Twin to a legitimate Writer, when those weekly fragments shall passe for History? let the poore mans box be entituled the Ex­chequer, and the almes-basket a Magazine. Not a worme that gnaws on the dull scalpe of voluminous Hollinshed, but at every meale de­voured more Cronicle, than his Tribe amounts to. A marginall note of William Prinne would serve for a winding sheet for that mans workes, [Page 5]like thick skinn'd fruits are all rinde, fit for nothing but the Authors fare, to be pared in a Pillory.

The Cooke, who serv'd up the Dwarf in a Pye, (to containe the fro­lique) might have lapp'd up such an Historian as this in the bill of fate. He is the first tincture and rudiment of a Writer, dip't as yet in the prepa­rative blew, like an Almanack well-willer. He is the Cadet of a Pam­phleteere, the Pedee of a Romancer. He is the Embrio of a History, slink'd before maturity. How should hee record the issues of time, who is him­selfe an Abortive? I will not say but he may pass for a historian in Ger­biers Academy, he is much of size of those knot-grasse Professors; What a pitifull Seminary was there projected yet suitable enough to the present University's, those drye Nurses which the providence of the [Page 6]age has so fully reform'd that they are turn'd Reformados. But that's no matter, the meaner the better. It is a maxime observable in these dayes, that the onely way to win the game is to play petty Johns. Of this num­ber is the Esquire of the quill; for he hath the grudging of History, and some yawnings accordingly: Wri­ting is a disease in him, and holds like a quotidian, so 'tis his infirmity that makes him an Author. As Mahomet was beholding to the falling-sicknesse to vouch him a Prophet. That nice Artificer, who filed a chaine so thinne and light that a flea could traile it, (as if he had worked short hand, and taught his tooles to cipher) did but contrive an Embleme for this skip­jack, and his slight productions.

Methinks the Turk should licence Diurnals, because he prohibits lear­ning and books. A Library of Diur­nals [Page 7]is a wardrobe of frippery, 'tis a just Idea of a Limbo of the Infants. I saw one once that could write with his toes, by the same token I could have wished he had worne his copies for socks, 'tis he without doubt from whom the Diurnals derive their pe­degree, and they have a birth-right accordingly, being shufled out at the beds feet of History. To what infi­nite numbers an Historian would mul­tiply, should he crumble into Elves of this profession? Legion'd Pimme, whose flesh bred such a world of Exe­cutors, as being made of the row of a Herring, of nothing else but compa­cted Nits, did not disband his body in more variety. To supply this smalnesse they are fain to joyn forces, so they are not singly, but as the custome is in a croaking Committee; they tug at the Pen, like slaves at the Oare, a whole bank together, they write in the po­sture [Page 8]that the Swedes gave fire in, over one anothers heads. It is said there is more of them go to a suit of Cloaths, than to a Britannicus; In this Poliga­my the Cloats breed, and cannot de­termine whose issue is lawfully begot­ten.

And here I think it were not amisse to take a particular how he is accou­tred, and so do by him, as he in his Siquis for the wall-ey'd mare, or the crop fleabitten; give you the narkes of the Beast. I begin with his head, which is ever in the Clours, as if the night-cap should make Affidabit, that the braine was pregnant. To what pur­pose doth the Pia Mater lye in so dully, in her white formallityes, sure she hath hard labour; for the browes have squeezed for it, as you may perceive by his butter'd bon­grace, that film of a dimicaster, 'tis so thin and unctuous, that the Sun­beams [Page 9]mistake it for a vapour, and are like to cap him; so 'tis right He­liotrope, it creaks in the shine, and flaps in the shade, What ever it be, I wish it were able to call in his eares; there's no proportion betwixt that head and appurtenances; those of all Lungs are no more fit for that small Noddle of the circumcision, than brasse bosses for a Geneva Bible. In what a puzling newtrality is the poor soule that moves betwixt two such ponderous byasses. His coller is wedged with a peece of peeping linnen, by which he means a band, 'tis the forlorne of his shirt crawling out of his neck, indeed it were time that his shirt were jog­ging, for it has serv'd an apprentiship and (as prentices use) it ha h learned his trade too, to which effect 'tis mar­ching to the Paper Mill, and the next week sets up for it selfe in the shape of a Pamphle. His gloves are the shavings [Page 10]of his hands, for he casts his skin like a cancelled parchment, the itch repre­sents the broken seales. His Bootes are the Legacies of two black Jacks, and till he pawn'd the silver that the Jacks were tipt with, it was a pretty mode of boot-hose-tops. For the rest of his habit, he is a perfect Sea­man, a kind of Interpawlin, he be­ing hang'd about with his course composition, those pole-dames pa­pers.

But I must draw to an end, for every Character is an Anatomy Le­cture, and it fares with me in this of the Diurnall-maker, as with him that reads on a begg'd Malefactor; my subject smels before I have gone halfe thorow him: for a parting blow, then, the word Historian imports a sage and solemn Author, one that curls his brow with a sullein gravity, like a Bull-necked Presbiter, since [Page 11]the Army hath got him off his ju­risdiction, who Presbyter-like sweeps his breast with a reverend beard, full of native mosse-troopers. Not such a squirting scribe as this that's troubled with the Rickets; and makes penny worths of History. The Colledge-Treasury, that never had in bank above a Harry groat, shut up there in a melancholly solitude, like one that is kept to keepe posses­sion, had as good evidence to shew for his title, as he for an Historian so if hee needes will be a Historian, he is not cited in the Sterling accepti­on, but after the rate of blew caps reckoning, an Historian Scot. Now a Scotch-mans tongue runnes high Fullam's, their is a Cheat in his Ideome; for the sense ebbes from the bold expression, like the Citizens Gallon, which the drawer interprets but halfe a pinte. In summe, [Page 12]a Diurnall-maker is the antemark of an Historian, he differs from him as a Drill from a man or (if you had rather have it in the Saints gibberish) as a Hinter doth from a Holder-forth.