And Hamlet speaks of more impossibilities, when he talks of throwing up "millions of acres," to "make Ossa like a wart." The drinking up a river is certainly more in unison with these extravagant proposals than a defiance "to swallow down (as Theobald has it) large draughts of vinegar;" or, as Malone gives it, "to drink a potion of vinegar." Such a proposition, Theobald admits, "is not very grand;" "a challenge to hazard a fit of the heartburn or the colic, is," says Steevens, "not very magnificent." But it is not only far from "grand" and "magnificent," but, what is worse, it is utterly tame and spiritless, in a place where anything but tameness is wanted, and where it is, quite out of keeping with the rest of the speech. MR. HICKSON, it is true, says (Vol. ii, p. 329.), that "the notion of drinking up a river would be quite unmeaning and out of place;" but this assertion is as groundless as Theobald's, and is somewhat surprising from a gentleman who exhorts those who would be critics "to master the grammatical construction of a passage, deducing therefrom its general sense," and, we may presume, its _general drift_, "before they attempt to fix the meaning of a doubtful word." Had MR. HICKSON looked to the _general drift_ of this passage, before he attempted to fix the meaning of _eisell_, or to concur with MR. SINGER of 1850 in his attempt to fix it, he would, we may suppose, have been less ready to pronounce the notion of drinking up a river _out of place_. It would have been better for him to have adhered to the judgment of Archdeacon Nares, as cited by MR. SINGER (Vol. ii., p. 241.):--"The challenge to drink _vinegar_, in such a rant," says the Archdeacon, "is so inconsistent, and even ridiculous, that we must decide for the _river_, whether its name be exactly found or not. To drink up a river, and eat a crocodile with his impenetrable scales, are two things equally impossible. There is no kind of comparison between the others." 15. Though examples of similar rant are quite unnecessary to support this opinion, let us nevertheless conclude by noticing those which the critics have adduced on this passage: "This sort of hyperbole," says Malone, in his second edition, "was common among our ancient poets. So, in Eastward Hoe, 1609: 'Come drink up Rhine, Thames, and Meander, dry.'. "So also in Greene's _Orlando Furioso_, 1599: 'Else would I set my mouth to Tigris' streames, And drink up overflowing Euphrates.' "Again, in Marlowe's _Jew of Malta_: 'As sooner shalt thou drink the ocean dry, Than conquer Malta.'" To which Boswell adds: "Our author has a similar exaggeration in _Troilus and Cressida_, Act III. Scene 2.: 'When we (_i. e._ lovers) vow to weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers,' &c. "In Chaucer's _Romaunt of the Rose_, we find the following lines: 'He underfongeth a grete paine, That undertaketh to drink up Seine.'"