Is a state newsmonger; and his own genius is his intelligencer. His mint
goes weekly, and he coins money by it. Howsoever, the more intelligent
merchants do jeer him, the vulgar do admire him, holding his novels
oracular; and these are usually sent for tokens or intermissive
courtesies betwixt city and country. He holds most constantly one form
or method of discourse. He retains some military words of art, which he
shoots at random; no matter where they hit they cannot wound any. He
ever leaves some passages doubtful, as if they were some more intimate
secrecies of state, closing his sentence abruptly with--_hereafter you
shall hear more._ Which words, I conceive, he only useth as baits, to
make the appetite of the reader more eager in his next week's pursuit
fora more satisfying labour. Some general-erring relations he picks up,
as crumbs or fragments, from a frequented ordinary; of which shreds he
shapes a coat to fit any credulous fool that will wear it. You shall
never observe him make any reply in places of public concourse; he
ingenuously acknowledges himself to be more bounden to the happiness of
a retentive memory, than either ability of tongue or pregnancy of
conceit. He carries his table-book still about with him, but dares not
pull it out publicly. Yet no sooner is the table drawn than he turns
notary, by which means he recovers the charge of his ordinary. Paul's is
his walk in winter, Moorfields in summer, where the whole discipline,
designs, projects, and exploits of the States, Netherlands, Poland,
Switzer, Crimchan and all, are within the compass of one quadrangle walk
most judiciously and punctually discovered. But long he must not walk,
lest he make his news-press stand. Thanks to his good invention, he can
collect much out of a very little; no matter though more experienced
judgments disprove him, he is anonymous, and that will secure him. To
make his reports more credible or (which he and his stationer only aims
at) more vendible, in the relation of every occurrence he renders you
the day of the month; and to approve himself a scholar, he annexeth
these Latin parcels, or parcel-gilt sentences, _veteri stylo, novo
stylo_. Palisados, parapets, counter-scarps, forts, fortresses,
rampiers, bulwarks, are his usual dialect. He writes as if he would do
some mischief, yet the charge of his shot is but paper. He will
sometimes start in his sleep, as one affrighted with visions, which I
can impute to no other cause but to the terrible skirmishes which he
discoursed of in the daytime. He has now tied himself apprentice to the
trade of minting, and must weekly perform his task, or (beside the loss
which accrues to himself) he disappoints a number of no small fools,
whose discourse, discipline, and discretion is drilled from his
state-service. These you shall know by their Monday's mornings question,
a little before exchange time: Stationer, have you any news? Which they
no sooner purchase than peruse; and, early by next morning (lest their
country friend should be deprived of the benefit of so rich a prize),
they freely vent the substance of it, with some illustrations, if their
understanding can furnish them that way. He would make you believe that
he were known to some foreign intelligence, but I hold him the wisest
man that hath the least faith to believe him. For his relations he
stands resolute, whether they become approved or evinced for untruths;
which if they be, he has contracted with his face never to blush for the
matter. He holds especial concurrence with two philosophical sects,
though he be ignorant of the tenets of either: in the collection of his
observations he is peripatetical, for he walks circularly; in the
digestion of his relations he is stoical, and sits regularly. He has an
alphabetical table of all the chief commanders, generals, leaders,
provincial towns, rivers, ports, creeks, with other fitting materials to
furnish his imaginary building. Whisperings, mutterings, and bare
suppositions are sufficient grounds for the authority of his relations.
It is strange to see with what greediness this airy chameleon, being all
lungs and wind, will swallow a receipt of news, as if it were physical;
yea, with what frontless insinuation he will screw himself into the
acquaintance of some knowing intelligencers, who, trying the cask by his
hollow sound, do familiarly gull him. I am of opinion, were all his
voluminous centuries of fabulous relations compiled, they would vie in
number with the Iliads of many fore-running ages. You shall many times
find in his gazettas, pasquils, and corrantos miserable distractions:
here a city taken by force long before it be besieged; there a country
laid waste before ever the enemy entered. He many times tortures his
readers with impertinencies, yet are these the tolerablest passages
throughout all his discourse. He is the very landscape of our age. He is
all air; his ear always open to all reports, which, how incredible
soever, must pass for current and find vent, purposely to get him
current money and delude the vulgar. Yet our best comfort is, his
chimeras live not long; a week is the longest in the city, and after
their arrival, little longer in the country, which past they melt like
butter, or match a pipe, and so burn. But indeed, most commonly it is
the height of their ambition to aspire to the employment of stopping
mustard-pots, or wrapping up pepper, powder, staves-aker, &c., which
done, they expire. Now for his habit, Wapping and Long Lane will give
him his character. He honours nothing with a more endeared observance,
nor hugs ought with more intimacy, than antiquity, which he expresseth
even in his clothes. I have known some love fish best that smelled of
the pannier; and the like humour reigns in him, for he loves that
apparel best that has a taste of the broker. Some have held him for a
scholar, but trust me such are in a palpable error, for he never yet
understood so much Latin as to construe _Gallo-Belgicus_. For his
library (his own continuations excepted), it consists of very few or no
books. He holds himself highly engaged to his invention if it can
purchase him victuals; for authors, he never converseth with them,
unless they walk in Paul's. For his discourse it is ordinary, yet he
will make you a terrible repetition of desperate commanders, unheard-of
exploits, intermixing withal his own personal service. But this is not
in all companies, for his experience hath sufficiently informed him in
this principle--that as nothing works more on the simple than things
strange and incredibly rare, so nothing discovers his weakness more
among the knowing and judicious than to insist, by way of discourse, on
reports above conceit. Amongst these, therefore, he is as mute as a
fish. But now imagine his lamp (if he be worth one) to be nearly burnt
out, his inventing genius wearied and footsore with ranging over so many
unknown regions, and himself wasted with the fruitless expense of much
paper, resigning his place of weekly collections to another, whom, in
hope of some little share, he has to his stationer recommended, while he
lives either poorly respected or dies miserably suspended. The rest I
end with his own close:--Next week you shall hear more.
_The other characters in "Whimzies" were an Almanac-maker, a
Ballad-monger, a Decoy, an Exchange-man, a Forester, a Gamester, an
Hospital-man, a Jailer, a Keeper, a Launderer, a Metal-man, a Neater, an
Ostler, a Postmaster, a Quest-man, a Ruffian, a Sailor, a Traveller, an
Under-Sheriff, a Wine-Soaker, a Xantippean, a Jealous Neighbour, a
Zealous Brother. The collection was enlarged by addition under separate
title-page of "A Cater-Character, thrown out of a box by an Experienced
Gamester"-which gave Characters of an Apparitor, a Painter, a Pedlar,
and a Piper. The author added also some lines "upon the Birthday of his
sonne Iohn," beginning--
"God blesse thee, Iohn,
And make thee such an one
That I may joy
In calling thee my son.
Thou art my ninth,
And by it I divine
That thou shalt live
To love the Muses Nine."_