ssage quoted by
Theobald from the _Knight of the Burning Pestle_ is an imitation. If it be
chargeable with any fault, it is with plagiarism, not with sarcasm.

"Henry V."

Act i. sc. 2. Westmoreland's speech:--

"They know your _grace_ hath cause, and means, and might;
So hath your _highness_; never King of England
Had nobles richer," &c.

Does "grace" mean the king's own peculiar domains and legal revenue, and
"highness" his feudal rights in the military service of his nobles?--I have
sometimes thought it possible that the words "grace" and "cause" may have
been transposed in the copying or printing;--

"They know your cause hath grace," &c.

What Theobald meant, I cannot guess. To me his pointing makes the passage
still more obscure. Perhaps the lines ought to be recited dramatically
thus:--

"They know your Grace hath cause, and means, and might:--
So _hath_ your Highness--never King of England
_Had_ nobles richer," &c.

He breaks off from the grammar and natural order from earnestness, and in
order to give the meaning more passionately.

_Ib._ Exeter's speech:--

"Yet that is but a _crush'd_ necessity."

Perhaps it may be "crash" for "crass" from _crassus_, clumsy; or it may be
"curt," defective, imperfect: anything would be better than Warburton's
"'scus'd," which honest Theobald, of course, adopts. By the by, it seems
clear to me that this speech of Exeter's properly belongs to Canterbury,
and was altered by the actors for convenience.

Act iv. sc. 3. King Henry's speech:--

"We would not _die_ in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us."

Should it not be "live" in the first line?

_Ib._ sc. 5.--

"_Const._ _O diable!_

_Orl._ _O seigneur! le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!_

_Dan._ _Mort de ma vie!_ all is confounded, all!
Reproach and everlasting shame
Sit mocking in our plumes!--_O meschante fortune!_
Do not run away!"

Ludicrous as these introductory scraps of French appear, so instantly
followed by good, nervous mother-English, yet they are judicious, and
produce the impression which Shakespeare intended,--a sudden feeling struck
at once on the ears, as well as the eyes, of the audience, that "here come
the French, the baffled French braggards!"--And this will appear still more
judicious, when we reflect on the scanty apparatus of distinguishing
dresses in Shakespeare's tyring-room.

"Henry VI.--Part I."

Act i. sc. 1. Bedford's speech:--