Replies.

THE MEANING OF EISELL.

[This controversy is becoming a little too warm for our pages. But Mr. Causton is entitled to have some portion of the letter he has sent to us inserted. He writes with reference to the communications from Mr. Hickson and Mr. Singer in our 68th number, p. 119., in reply to Mr. C.'s Article, which, although it had been in our hands a considerable time, was not inserted until out 65th Number, p. 66.; a delay which gave to that article the appearance of an attempt to revive a discussion, whereas it really was written only in continuance of one.]

To Mr. Hickson I suggest, that whether the notion of "drinking up a river," or "eating a crocodile," be the more "unmeaning" or "out of place," must after all be a mere matter of opinion, as the latter must remain a question of taste; since it seems to be his settled conviction that it is not "impossible," but only "extravagant." Archdeacon Nares thought it quite the reverse; and I beg to remind your readers that Shakspearian crocodiles are never served à la Soyer, but swallowed au naturel and entire.

Mr. Hickson is dissatisfied with my terms "mere verbiage" and "extravagant rant." I recommend a careful consideration of the scene over the grave of Ophelia; and then let any one say whether or not the "wag" of tongue between Laertes and Hamlet be not fairly described by the expressions I have used,—a paraphrase indeed, of Hamlet's concluding lines:

Doubtless Shakspeare had a purpose in everything he wrote, and his purpose at this time was to work up the scene to the most effective conclusion, and to display the excitement of Hamlet in a series of beautiful images, which, nevertheless, the queen his mother immediately pronounced to be "mere madness," and which one must be as mad as Hamlet himself to adopt as feats literally to be performed.

The offence is rank in the eyes of Mr. Singer that I should have styled Mr. Hickson his friend. The amenities of literature, I now perceive, do not extend to the case, and a new canon is required, to the effect that "when one gentleman is found bolstering up the argument of another, he is not, ever for the nonce, to be taken for his friend." I think the denial to be expressed in rather strong language; but I hasten to make the amende suitable to the occasion, by withdrawing the "falsehood and unfounded insinuation."

Mr. Singer has further charged me with "want of truth," in stating that the question remains "substantially where Steevens and Malone had left it." Wherein, I ask, substantially consists the difference?

Mr. Singer has merely substituted his "wormwood wine" for Malone's vinegar; and before he can make it as palatable to common sense, and Shakspeare's "logical correctness and nicety of expression," as it was to Creed and Shepley, he must get over the "stalking-horse," the drink UP, which stands in his way precisely as it did in that of Malone's more legitimate proposition. Mr. Singer overleaps the difficulty by a bare assertion that "to drink UP was commonly used for simply to drink." He has not produced any parallel case of proof, with the exception of one from Mr. Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes. I adopt his citation, and shall employ it against him.

Drink UP can only be grammatically applied to a determinate total, whether it be the river Yssell or Mr. Hickson's dose of physic. Shakespeare seems to have been well acquainted with, and to have observed, the grammatical rule which Mr. Singer professes not to comprehend. Thus:

and

are parallel passages, and imply quantity indeterminate, inasmuch as they admit of more or less.

Now Mr. Singer's obliging quotation from the Nursery Rhymes,—

certainly implies quite the reverse; for it can be taken to mean neither more nor less than the identical glass of wine that Jenny had standing before her. A parallel passage will be found in Shakspeare's sonnet (CXIV.):

and in this category, on the rule exponed, since it cannot positively appertain to the other, must, I think, be placed the line of Hamlet,—

as a noun implying absolute entirety; which might be a river, but could not be grammatically applied to any unexpressed quantity.

Now what is the amount and value of Mr. Singer's proposition? He says:

When pressed by Lord Braybrooke ("Notes and Queries," Vol. ii., p. 286.), who proved, by an extract from Pepys's Diary, that wormwood wine, so far from bearing out Mr. Singer's description, was, in fact, a fashionable luxury, probably not more nauseous than the pale ale so much in repute at the present day, Mr. Singer very adroitly produced a "corroborative note" from "old Langham" ("Notes and Queries," Vol. ii., p. 315.), which, curiously enough, is castrated of all that Langham wrote pertaining to the question in issue. Treating of the many virtues of the prevailing tonic as an appetiser, and restorer "of a good color" to them that be "leane and evil colored," Langham says:

Thus it will be seen that the reason for "streining out a little spoonfull" as a restorative for a weak stomach was less on account of the infusion being so "atrociously unpalatable," than of the alcohol used in its preparation.

Dr. Venner also recommends as an excellent stomachic,

"To drink mornings fasting, and sometimes also before dinner, a draught of wormwood-wine or beer:"

and we may gather the "atrocious bitterness" of the restorative, by the substitute he proposes: "or, for want of them," he continues:

It will be time enough to decide which of us has run his head against "a stumbling-block of his own making," when Mr. Singer shall have found a probable solution of his difficulty "by a parallelism in the poet's pages."

H. K. Staple Causton.