Or like a cunning instrument cas’d up,
Or being open, put into his hands
That knows no touch to tune the harmony.
I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,
Too far in years to be a pupil now.’—
How very beautiful is all this, and at the same time how very English too!
Richard II. may be considered as the first of that series of English historical plays, in which ‘is hung armour of the invincible knights of old,’ in which their hearts seem to strike against their coats of mail, where their blood tingles for the fight, and words are but the harbingers of blows. Of this state of accomplished barbarism the appeal of Bolingbroke and Mowbray is an admirable specimen. Another of these ‘keen encounters of their wits,’ which serve to whet the talkers’ swords, is where Aumerle answers in the presence of Bolingbroke to the charge which Bagot brings against him of being an accessory in Gloster’s death.
‘Fitzwater. If that thy valour stand on sympathies,
There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage to thine;
By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand’st,