Among other humours, Mr Eveling’s repeating of some verses made up of nothing but the various acceptations of ‘may’ and ‘can’, and doing it so aptly, upon occasion of something of that nature, and so fast, did make us all die almost with laughing, and did so stop the mouth of Sir J. Mennes in the middle of all his mirth (and in a thing agreeing with his own manner of genius) that I never saw any man so outdone in all my life; and Sir J. Mennes’s mirth too, to see himself outdone, was the crown of all our mirth.

Samuel Pepys, Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1669