The opening paragraph from one of my favorite authors, T.Coraghessan Boyle, from his first novel "Water Music":

"At an age when most young Scotsmen were lifting skirts, plowing furrows, and spreading seed, Mungo Park was displaying his bare buttocks to al-haj'Ali Ibn Fatoudi, Emir of Ludamar. The year was 1795. George III was dabbing the walls of Windsor Castle with his own spittle, the Notables were botching things in France, Goya was deaf, De Quincey a depraved adolescent. George Bryan 'Beau' Brummell was smoothing down his first starched collar, young Ludwig van Beethoven, beetle browed and twenty-four, was wowing them in Vienna with his Piano Concerto no.2, and Ned Rise was drinking Strip-Me-Naked with Nan Punt and Sally Sebum at the Pig & Pox Tavern in Maiden Lane."