He hath so
raw-boned a being that however you render him he rubs it out and makes
rags of the expression. The silly countryman who, seeing an ape in a
scarlet coat, blessed 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 mandrake; 'tis to view him through a
perspective, and by that gross hyperbole to give the reputation of an
engineer to a maker of mousetraps. Such an historian would hardly pass
muster with a Scotch stationer in a sieveful of ballads and godly books.
He would not serve for the breast-plate of a begging Grecian. The most
cramped compendium that the age hath seen since all learning hath been
almost torn into ends, outstrips him by the head. I have 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 offspring of the stoves. I know not what
_Ignis fatuus_ adulterates the press, but it seems much after that
fashion, else how could this vermin think to be a twin to a legitimate
writer; when those weekly fragments shall pass for history, let the poor
man's box be entitled the exchequer, and the alms-basket a magazine. Not
a worm that gnaws on the dull scalp of voluminous Holinshed, but at
every meal devoured more chronicle than his tribe amounts to.
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