Are the weekly almanacs, showing what weather is in the state, which,
like the doves of Aleppo, carry news to every part of the kingdom. They
are the silent traitors that affront majesty, and abuse all authority,
under the colour of an imprimatur. Ubiquitary flies that have of late so
blistered the ears of all men, that they cannot endure the solid truth.
The echoes, whereby what is done in part of the kingdom, is heard all
over. They are like the mushrooms, sprung up in a night, and dead in a
day; and such is the greediness of men's natures (in these Athenian
days) of new, that they will rather feign than want it.
_So the tide ran on. In_ 1647 _there was "The Character of an Agitator,"
and also John Cleveland's Character of a London Diurnal._