"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." "There be mountebanks, as well in the civil body as in the natural; I ever served his Majesty with modesty; no shouting, no undertaking." In the odd fashion of the time--a fashion in which no one more delighted than himself--he lays hold of sacred words to give point to his argument.
"I may allude to the three petitions of the Litany--_Libera nos Domine_; _parce nobis, Domine_; _exaudi nos, Domine_.

In the first, I am persuaded that his Majesty had a mind to do it, and could not conveniently in respect of his affairs.

In the second, he hath done it in my fine and pardon.

In the third, he hath likewise performed, in restoring to the light of his countenance." But if the King did not see fit to restore him to public employment, he would be ready to give private counsel; and he would apply himself to any "literary province" that the King appointed.