Saturday, October 26, 2013

Very Tiny Capers

Hey, I like the way they wrote in the 17th century. In this book REPROBATES: THE CAVALIERS OF THE ENGLISH CIVIL WAR (which is from the 21st century), the author tells about the time King James was watching a really boring play and cried out, "Devil take all of you, dance!" So, as a contemporary chronicler recorded, the king's best pal Buckingham jumped up and "danced a number of high and very tiny capers with such grace and lightness that he made everybody love him." Ha ha! Aw! I want to see somebody dance some high and very tiny capers. Later in the chapter, a 17th-century travel writer, James Howell, says that the cavaliers of Madrid don't particularly enjoy dueling, "but often vse priuate quarrelling in the streets, and are much giuen to suddaine desperate stabbing."