---- 'Tis flattery in my seeing And my great mind most kingly _drinks_ it _up_.' "Again, in _Timon of Athens_: 'And how his silence _drinks up_ his applause.' "In Shakspeare's time, as at present, to _drink up_ often meant no more than simply _to drink_. So in Florio's _Italian Dictionary_, 1598: '_Sorbire_, to sip or _sup up_ any drink.' In like manner we sometimes say, 'When you have _swallowed down_ this potion,' though we mean no more than, 'When you have _swallowed_ this potion.'" In his second edition, however, Malone abandoned his first interpretation, and his remarks on _drink up_ then went for nothing. Discussion on this point has occupied some paragraphs in "NOTES AND QUERIES." MR. SINGER, in his first paper (Vol. ii., p. 241.), asserts that "_to drink up_ was commonly used for simply _to drink_." MR. HICKSON, too (No. 51.), affirms that "_drink up_ is synonymous with _drink off_, _drink to the dregs_," and observes that "a child taking medicine is urged to _drink it up_." But H. K. S. C., or Mr. H. K. S. CAUSTON, as he afterwards signs himself, denies that _drink up_ can be used of _eysell_, or any other liquid, unless a _definite quantity_ of it be signified; that is, you may say to any one, if you please, in allusion to a _definite quantity of vinegar_, "Drink it up;" but if you allude to _vinegar in general_, without limitation of quantity, you will say merely, "Drink vinegar." So if you would ask your friend whether he drinks wine or water, you would say, "Do you drink wine or water?" not "Do you drink up wine or water?" which would be to ask him whether he drinks up _all_ the wine or water in the world, or at least _all the definite quantities of either_ that come within his reach. MR. SINGER professes not to understand this doctrine, and refers MR. CAUSTON to the nursery rhyme: "_Eat up_ your cake, Jenny, _Drink up_ your wine," "which," he says, "may perhaps afford him further apt illustration;" but which supplies, MR. CAUSTON rejoins, only another example that _drink up_ is applied to definite quantity; a quantity which, in this case, is "neither more nor less than the identical glass of wine which Jenny had standing before her." The line in Shakspeare's 114th Sonnet is, MR. CAUSTON adds, "a parallel passage." To _drink up_, therefore, he concludes, must be used of "a noun implying _absolute entirety_, which might be a river, but could not be grammatically applied to any unexpressed quantity." In these remarks there seems to be great justness of reasoning. MR. CAUSTON might also have instanced the lines: "Freely welcome to my cup, Couldst thou sip, and sip it up:" that is, "couldst thou _go on sipping_ till thou hast _sipped up_, or _entirely exhausted, the whole definite quantity_ in the cup."