This
was before midsummer; and about two months after, I received the play
back again from his lordship, but without any positive order whether
it should be acted or not; neither was Mr Lee, or myself, any way
solicitous about it. But this indeed I ever said, that it was intended
for the king's service; and his majesty was the best judge, whether it
answered that end or no; and that I reckoned it my duty to submit, if
his majesty, for any reason whatsoever, should deem it unfit for the
stage. In the interim, a strict scrutiny was made, and no parallel of
the great person designed, could be made out. But this push failing,
there were immediately started some terrible insinuations, that the
person of his majesty was represented under that of Henry the Third;
which if they could have found out, would have concluded, perchance,
not only in the stopping of the play, but in the hanging up of the
poets. But so it was, that his majesty's wisdom and justice acquitted
both the one, and the other; and when the play itself was almost
forgotten, there were orders given for the acting of it.
This is matter of fact; and I have the honour of so great witnesses to
the truth of what I have delivered, that it will need no other appeal.
As to the exposing of any person living, our innocency is so clear,
that it is almost unnecessary to say, it was not in my thought; and,
as far as any one man can vouch for another, I do believe it was as
little in Mr Lee's.
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