I quite agree with him, if he mean to say that the early dramatists ascribe to their gallants a fashion which in reality belongs to the age of Du Gueslin and the Troubadours. But Hamlet himself, in the context of the passage in question, gives the key to his whole purport, when, after some further extravagance, he says: "Nay, an thoul't mouth, I'll rant as well as thou." That being so, why are we to conclude that each feat of daring is to be a tame possibility, save only the last--the crowning extravagance? Why not also the one preceding? Why not a feat equally of mere verbiage and rant? Why not a river? Adopting MR. HICKSON'S canon of criticism, the grammatical construction of the passage requires that a definite substantive shall be employed to explain the definite something that is to be done. Shakspeare says-- "Woul't drink up esile?"[9] --a totality in itself, without the expression of quantity to make it definite. If we read "drink up wormwood," what does it imply? It may be the smallest possible quantity,--an ordinary dose of bitters; or a pailful, which would perhaps meet the "madness" of Hamlet's daring. Thus the little monosyllable "up" must be disposed of, or a quantity must be expressed to reconcile MR. SINGER'S proposition with Mr. HICKSON'S canon and the grammatical sense of Shakspeare's line. If with Steevens we understand _esile_ to be a river, "the Danish river _Oesil_, which empties itself into the Baltic," the _Yssel_, _Wessel_, or any other river, real or fictitious, the sense is clear. Rather let Shakspeare have committed a geographical blunder on the information of his day, than break {68} Priscian's head by modern interpretation of his words. If we read "_drink up esile_" as one should say, "_woul't drink up Thames?_"--a task as reasonably impossible as setting it on fire (nevertheless a proverbial expression of a thirsty soul, "He'll drink the Thames dry"),--the task is quite in keeping with the whole tenor of Hamlet's extravagant rant. H.K.S.C. Brixton. [Footnote 6: So the folio, according to my copy. It would be advantageous, perhaps, to note the spelling in the earliest edition of the sonnet whence MR. SINGER quotes "_potions of eysell_:" a difference, if there be any, would mark the distinction between Hamlet's river and the Saxon derivative.] * * * * * ALTAR LIGHTS, ETC. (Vol. ii., p. 495. Vol. iii., p. 30.) The following passage from the works of a deeply pious and learned Caroline Divine, which I have never before seen quoted, merits, I think, a place in "NOTES AND QUERIES:"--