I'll see their trial first. Bring in the evidence.
Thou robed MAN of JUSTICE take thy place.
[To TOM O'BEDLAM.]
And thou, his yoke fellow of EQUITY bench by his side.
[To the FOOL.]
You are of 'the Commission'—sit you too.
[To KENT.]
Truly it was a bold wit that could undertake to constitute that bench on the stage, and fill it with those speaking forms,—speaking to the eye the unmistakeable significance, for these judges, two of them, happened to be on the spot in full costume,—and as to the third, he was of 'the commission.' 'Sit you, too.' Truly it was a bold instructor that could undertake 'to facilitate' the demonstration of 'the more chosen subjects,' with the aid of diagrams of this kind.
Arms! Arms! Sword, fire! CORRUPTION IN THE PLACE! False justicer, why hast thou let her scape?
The tongues of these ancient sovereigns of Britain, 'tang' throughout with Elizabethan 'arguments of state,' and even Goneril, in her somewhat severe proceedings against her father, justifies her course in a very grave and excellent speech, enriched with the choicest phrases of that particular order of state eloquence, in which majesty stoops graciously to a recognition of the subject nation;—a speech from which we gather that the 'tender of a wholesome weal' is, on the whole, the thing which she has at heart most deeply, and though the proceeding in question is a painful one to her feelings, a state necessity appears to prescribe it, or at least, render it 'discreet.'
Even in Gloster's case, though the process to which he is subjected, is, confessedly, an extemporaneous one, it appears from the Duke of Cornwall's statement, that it was only the form which was wanting to make it legal. Thus he apologizes for it.—