Chapter Capucinade to Care of C by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Drayton says that Caradoc went to Rome with body naked, hair to the waist, girt with a chain of steel, and his “manly breast enchased with sundry shapes of beasts. Both his wife and children were captives, and walked with him.”—Polyolbion, viii. (1612).

Caracul (i.e. Caracalla), son and successor of Severus the Roman emperor. In A .D. 210 he made an expedition against the Caledonians, but was defeated by Fingal. Aurelius Antoninus was called “Caracalla” because he adopted the Gaulish caracalla in preference to the Roman toga.—Ossian: Comala.

The Caracul of Fingal is no other than Caracalla, who (as the son of Severus) the emperor of Rome…was not without reason called “The Son of the King of the World.” This was A.D. 210.—Dissertation on the Era of Ossian.

Caracul, called Caraculla in Ossian, is Antoninus.

Caraculiambo, the hypothetical giant of the islan d of Malindrama, whom don Quixote imagines he may one day conquer and make to kneel at the foot of his imaginary lady-love.—Cervantes: Don Quixote, I. i. 1 (1605).

Caradoc or Cradock, a knight of the Round Table. He was husband of the only lady in the queen’s train who could wear “the mantle of matrimonial fidelity.” This mantle fitted only chaste and virtuous wives; thus, when queen Guenever tried it on—

One while it was too long, another while too short,
And wrinkled on her shoulders in most unseemly sort.
   —Percy: Reliques (“Boy and the Mantle,” III. iii. 18).

Sir Caradoc and the Boar’s Head. The boy who brought the test mantle of fidelity to king Arthur’s court, drew a wand three times across a boar’s head, and said, “There’s never a cuckold who can carve that head of brawn.” Knight after knight made the attempt, but only sir Cradock could carve the brawn.

Sir Caradoc and the Drinking-horn. The boy furthermore brought forth a drinking-horn, and said, “No cuckold can drink from that horn without spilling the liquor.” Only Cradock succeeded, and “he wan the golden can.”—Percy: Reliques (“Boy and the Mantle,” III. iii. 18).

Caradoc of Menwygent, the younger bard of Gwenwyn prince of Powys-land. The elder bard of the prince was Cadwallon.—Sir W. Scott: The Betrothed (time, Henry II.).

Caratach or Caractacus, a British king brought captive before the emperor Claudius in A.D. 52. He had been betrayed by Cartimandua. Claudius set him at liberty.

And Beaumont’s pilfered Caratach affords
A tragedy complete except in words.
   —Byron: English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809).

(Byron alludes to the “spectacle” of Caractacus produced by Thomas Sheridan at Drury Lane Theatre. It was Beaumont’s tragedy of Bonduca, minus the dialogue.)

Digges [1720–1786] was the very absolute “Caratach.” The solid bulk of his frame, his action, his voice, all marked him with identity.—Boaden: Life of Siddons.

Carathis, mother of the caliph Vathek. She was a Greek, and induced her son to study necromancy, held in abhorrence by all good Mussulmans. When her son threatened to put to death every one who attempted without success to read the inscriptions of certain sabres, Carathis wisely said, “Content yourself, my son, with commanding their beards to be burnt. Beards are less essential to a state than men.” She was ultimately carried by an afrit to the abyss of Eblis, in punishment of her many crimes.—Beckford: Vathek (1784).