" "Therefore," he
goes on, "if your Majesty do at any time find it fit for your affairs to
employ me publicly upon the stage, I shall so live and spend my time as
neither discontinuance shall disable me nor adversity shall discourage
me, nor anything that I do give any new scandal or envy upon me." He
insists very strongly that the King's service never miscarried in his
hands, for he simply carried out the King's wise counsels. "That his
Majesty's business never miscarried in my hands I do not impute to any
extraordinary ability in myself, but to my freedom from any particular,
either friends or ends, and my careful receipt of his directions, being,
as I have formerly said to him, but as a bucket and cistern to that
fountain--a bucket to draw forth, a cistern to preserve." He is not
afraid of the apparent slight to the censure passed on him by
Parliament. "For envy, it is an almanack of the old year, and as a
friend of mine said, _Parliament died penitent towards me_." "What the
King bestows on me will be further seen than on Paul's steeple.
Pages:
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273