acherous Kiss--California--Bishops and their
Precedence--Elizabeth and Isabel--Bever's Legal
Polity--Rikon Basilike, &c. 251

MISCELLANEOUS:--
Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 255
Notices to Correspondents. 255
Advertisements. 256

* * * * *

NOTES.

THE MEANING OF "DRINK UP EISELL" IN HAMLET.

Few passages have been more discussed than this wild challenge of Hamlet
to Laertes at the grave of Ophelia:

"Ham. I lov'd Ophelia! forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

--Zounds! show me what thou'lt do?
Woo't weep? Woo't fight? Woo't fast? Woo't tear
thyself?

_Woo't drink up Eisell?_ eat a crocodile?

I'll do't".

The sum of what has been said may be given in the words of Archdeacon
Nares:

"There is no doubt that eisell meant vinegar, nor even that
Shakspeare has used it in that sense; but in this passage it
seems that it must be put for the name of a Danish river.... The
question was much disputed between Messrs. Steevens and Malone:
the former being for the river, the latter for the vinegar; and
he endeavored even to get over the drink up, which stood much in
his way. But after all, the challenge to drink vinegar, in such
a rant, 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."

I must confess that I was formerly led to adopt this view of the
passage, but on more mature investigation I find that it is wrong. I see
no necessary connection between eating a crocodile and drinking up
eysell; and to drink up was commonly used for simply to drink. Eisell or
Eysell certainly signified vinegar, but it was certainly not used in
that sense by Shakspeare, who may in this instance be his own expositor;
the word occurring again in his CXIth sonnet.

"Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
Potions of eysell, 'gainst my strong infection;
No bitterness that I will bitter think,
Nor double penance, to correct correction."

Here we see that it was a bitter potion which it was a penance to drink.
Thus also in the Troy Book of Lydgate:

"Of bitter eysell, and of eager wine."

Now numerous passages in