or three moments during the play, though in a
gentler manner; for I thought more of the humanity beneath than of the
show above; and a rotten humanity most of it seemed to me. These were
but men like myself, and some pretty evil too. Those gentlemen that were
with the King--there was scarcely one of them about whom I did not know
something considerably to his discredit: there was my Lord Ailesbury in
strict attendance on him; and Killigrew--he that had the theatre--and
the less said of him the better: and there were three or four more like
him; the Earl of Craven was there, colonel of the foot-guards; and Lord
Keeper Guildford; and the Earl of Bath; and there, in the midst, the
King himself, with his blue silk cloak over his shoulders, and his
princely walk, going fast as he always did, and smiling-well, what of
those thirteen known mistresses of his that he had had, as well as of
those other--God knows how many!--poor maids, who must look upon him as
their ruin? It was a brave sight enough, there in the sunshine--I will
not deny that--with the sun on the jewels and the silks, and on the buff
and steel of the guards, with that swift kingly figure going in the
midst; and it was a brave noise that the music made as they went within
the Banqueting-Hall; but how, thought I, does God see it all? And for
what do such things count before His Holy Presence?

I had not rehearsed what I should say to His Majesty when I saw him; for
indeed it was of no further moment to me what either I or he should say.
I should be gone for ever in three days to the secret service of another
King than him--to that secret service where men need not lie and cheat
and spy and get their hearts broken after all and no gratitude for it;
but to that service which is called _Opus Dei_ in the choir, and is
prayer and study and contemplation in the cloister and the cell. There I
should sing, week by week:

"Oh! put not your trust in princes nor in any child of man: for there is
no help in them."

In such a mood then--not wholly Christian, I will admit!--I came into
the King's closet, to take my leave of him, on that Saturday night, the
last day of January, in the year of Salvation sixteen hundred and
eighty-five.

He was standing up when I entered his private closet, with a very
serious look on his face; and, to my astonishment, took a step towards
me, holding out both his hands. I will not deny that I was moved; but I
had determined to be very stiff.