But who ever saw dancers
on ropes so equally poise themselves, that at last they fall not down
and break their necks?"
* * * * *
_A Court Jester._--Fuller thus describes one: "Of this fellow, his
body, downwards, was a fool, his head a knave, who did carefully note,
and cunningly vent, by the privileges of his coat, many state-passages,
uttering them, in a _wary twilight_, betwixt sport and earnest."
* * * * *
_An Excellent Courtier._--Sir Walter Raleigh speaks of Queen
Elizabeth, when sixty years of age, "riding like Alexander, hunting like
Diana, walking like Venus, the gentle wind blowing her fair hair about
her pure cheeks like a nymph,--sometime sitting in the shade like a
goddess, sometime singing like an angell, sometime playing like
Orpheus."
* * * * *
_A Lock-et._--Mark Scaliot, blacksmith, in the 20th of Queen
Elizabeth, made a lock of eleven pieces of iron, steel, and brass, with
a pipe key, and golden chain of forty-three links, which were hung round
the neck of a flea.--The animal, together with this burthen, weighed
only one grain and a half.
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