HICKSON, taking up the weak point which Mr. SINGER had slurred over,
observes--
"_Drink up_ is synonymous with _drink off_, _drink to the dregs_. A
child taking medicine is urged to 'drink it up.'"
Ay, exactly so; drink up what? _the_ medicine; again a defined quantity;
dregs and all,--still a _definite_ quantity.
MR. HICKSON proceeds:
"The idea of the passage appears to be that each of the acts should go
beyond the last preceding in extravagance.
'Woo't weep? woo't fight? woo't fast? woo't tear thyself?
Woo't drink up eisell?'
and then comes the climax--'eat a crocodile?' Here is a regular
succession of feats, the last but one of which is sufficiently wild,
though not unheard of, and leading to the crowning extravagance. The
notion of drinking up a river would be both unmeaning and out of
place."
From this argument two conclusions are the natural consequences: first,
that from _drinking up_ wormwood,--a feat "sufficiently wild but not
unheard of," to eating a crocodile, is only a "regular succession of
events;" and, secondly, that the "crowning extravagance," to eat a
crocodile, is, after all, neither "unmeaning" nor "out of place;" but, on
the contrary, quite in keeping and in orderly succession to a "drink up" of
the bitter infusion.
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