210 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 72. 



Rev. Thomas Moss, minister of Brierly Hill and 

 Trentham, in Statfordsliire, who wrote it at about tlie 

 age of twenty- three, lie soUl the manuscript of tliat, and 

 of several otiiers, to Mr. Smart, printer, in Wolverhamp- 

 ton, wlio, from the dread which Mr. Moss had of 

 criticism, was to publish them on this condition, that 

 only twenty copies should have his name annexed to 

 them, for tlie purpose of being presented to his relations 

 and friends.] 



" Tiring-irons never to he untied.'''' — To what 

 does Lightfoot (vol. vii. p. 214.) refer when, in 

 speaking of the Scriptures, he sajs — 



" Tiiey are not unriddleable riddles, and tiring-irons 

 never to be untied"? 



J. Eastwood. 



Ecclesfield, 



[The allusion is to a puzzle for children — often 

 used by grown children — which consists of a series of 

 iron rings, on to or off which a loop of iron wire may 

 be got with some labour by those who know the way, 

 and which is very correctly designated c tiritig-iron.] 



ilcpIt'C^. 

 THE MEANING OF EISELL. 



[This controversy is becoming a little too warm for 

 our pages. But Mii. 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, althougli it had 

 been in our hands a considerable time, was not inserted 

 until our 65th Number, p. 66. ; a delay which gave to 

 tliat article the appearance of an attempt to revive a 

 discussion, whereas it really was written only in con- 

 tinuance of one.] 



To Mr. IIicivSon" I suggest, that whetlier the 

 notion of " drinking up a river," or "eating a cro- 

 codile," 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 tliat it is not 

 "impossible," but only "extravagant." Arch- 

 deacon Narcs thought it quite the reverse ; and I 

 beg to remind your readers that Shakspearian cro- 

 codiles are never served « la iSoi/cr, but swallowed 

 au nattirel and entire. 



Mr. Hickson is dissatisfied with my terms 

 "mere verbiage" and "extravagant rant." I re- 

 commend 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 th i 

 expressions 1 have used, — a paraphrase indeed, of 

 Hamlet's concluding lines : 



" Nay, an thou'lt mmdli, 

 I'll rant as well as thou." 



Doubtless Shakspeare had a purpose in ever}'- 

 thing he wrote, and his purpose at this time was to 

 work u]) the scene to the most efiective conclusion, 

 and to display the excitenient 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 Ham- 

 let himself to adopt as feats literally to be per- 

 formed. 



The offence is rank in the eyes of Mr. Singer 

 that I should have styled Mr. Hickson his friend. 

 Tlie 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 argimient of another, he is not, 

 even 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 (he 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 andMalone had left 

 it." Wherein, I ask, substantially consists the dif- 

 ference ? 



Mr. Singer has merely substituted his 

 " wormwood wine" lor ilalone's vinegar ; and be- 

 fore 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 

 tliat " to drink up was commonly used for sirajily 

 to drink." He has not produced any parallel case 

 of proof, with the exception of one from Mr. Hal- 

 liwell's Nursery li/iymes. I adopt his citation, and 

 sha'l employ it against him. 



Drink UP can oidy be grammatically applied to a 

 determinate total, whether it be the river Yssell 

 or Mb. Hickson's dose of physic. Shakspeare 

 seems to have been well acquainted with, and to 

 have observed, the grammatical rule which Mr. 

 Singer professes not to comprehend. Thus : 



" I will drink, 

 Tolinns o/eysell." 



Shaksp. Sonnet cxi. 

 and 



" Give me to drink niandragora," 



Ant. and Cleop., Act I. Sc. 5. 

 are parallel passages, and imply quantity indeter- 

 minate, inasmuch as they admit of more or less. 



Now Mr. Singer's obliging quotation from the 

 Nui'sery Rhymes, — 



" Eat UP your cake, Jenny, 

 Drink UP vouR wine" — 

 certainly implies quite the reverse ; for it can be 

 taken to mean neither more nor less than the iden- 

 tical glass of wine that Jenny had standing before 

 her. A parallel passage will be found in Shak- 

 speare's sonnet (cxiv.) : 



" Drink up the monarch's plague, tfiis flattery : " 



