Hampton Court ... Illustrated with forty-three drawings by Herbert ...

ANNE BULLEN 41
passed they forth the night with banqueting, dancing,
and other triumphant devices, to the great comfort
of the King, and pleasant regard of the nobility there
assembled.
" All this matterIhave declared largely, because
ye shall understand what joy and delight the Cardinal
had to see his Prince and Sovereign Lord in his house
so nobly entertained and placed, which was always his
only study, to devise things to his comfort, not passing
upon the charges or expenses. It delighted him so
much to have the King's pleasant and princely presence,
that nothing was to him more delectable than
to cheer his Sovereign Lord, to whom he owed so much
obedience and loyalty; as reason required no less, all
things well considered."
" This night he makesa supper,and a great one,
To many lords and ladies:there willbe
The beauty of this kingdom.
This Churchman bears a bounteous mindindeed,
A hand as fruitful as the land that feeds us.
His deeds fall everywhere."
How pleasantly the dramatist uses the description
we well remember, with the " Shepherds' Dance "
sounding in our ears as we think of it. He brings
Anne Bullen so happily into it —
" By heaven, she is a dainty one "—
though Cavendish tells the tale of the masque as
though it happened some while before the King fell
before "Venus, the insatiate goddess," that we may