“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.