The language I have learned these forty years,
    My native English, now I must forego;
    And now my tongue’s use is to me no more
    Than an unstringed viol or a harp,
    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
     I heard thee say, and vauntingly thou spak’st it,
     That thou wert cause of noble Gloster’s death. 
     If thou deny’st it twenty times thou liest,
     And I will turn thy falsehood to thy heart
     Where it was forged, with my rapier’s point.

   Aumerle.  Thou dar’st not, coward, live to see the day,

   Fitzwater.  Now, by my soul, I would it were this hour.

   Aumerle.  Fitzwater, thou art damn’d to hell for this.

   Percy.  Aumerle, thou liest; his honour is as true,
     In this appeal, as thou art all unjust;
     And that thou art so, there I throw my gage
     To prove it on thee, to th’ extremest point
     Of mortal breathing.  Seize it, if thou dar’st.

   Aumerle.  And if I do not, may my hands rot off,
     And never brandish more revengeful steel
     Over the glittering helmet of my foe. 
     Who sets me else?  By heav’n, I’ll throw at all. 
     I have a thousand spirits in my breast,
     To answer twenty thousand such as you.

   Surrey.  My lord Fitzwater, I remember well
     The very time Aumerle and you did talk.

   Fitzwater.  My lord, ’tis true:  you were in presence then;
     And you can witness with me, this is true.

   Surrey.  As false, by heav’n, as heav’n itself is true.

   Fitzwater, Surrey, thou liest.

   Surrey.  Dishonourable boy,
     That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword,
     That it shall render vengeance and revenge,
     Till thou the lie-giver and that lie rest
     In earth as quiet as thy father’s skull. 
     In proof whereof, there is mine honour’s pawn: 
     Engage it to the trial, if thou dar’st.