Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/322

290 judgment, in clearing and solving obscure riddles and doubtful mysteries; as also, because the more time would, in the meantime, be given for the practice to ripen, if any was, whereby the discovery might be more clear and evident, and the ground of proceeding thereupon more safe, just, and easy. And so, according to their determination, did the said Earl of Salisbury repair to the King in his gallery upon Friday, being Allhallow's-day, in the afternoon, which was the day after his Majesty's arrival, and none but himself being present with his Highness at that time, where, without any other speech, or judgment given of the letter, but only relating simply the form of the delivery thereof, he presented it to his Majesty.

'The King no sooner read the letter, but after a little pause, and then reading it once again, he delivered his judgment of it in such sort, as he thought it was not to be contemned, for that the style of it seemed to be more quick and pithy, than is usual to be in any pasquil or libel, the superfluities of idle brains. But the Earl of Salisbury, perceiving the King to apprehend it deeplier than he looked for, knowing his nature, told him, that he thought, by one sentence in it, that it was likely to be written by some fool or madman, reading to him this sentence in it: "For the danger is past, as soon as you have burnt the letter;" which, he said, was likely to be the saying of a fool; for, if the danger was passed, so soon as this letter was