MR. SINGER (vol. ii., p. 241.) says:
"Numerous passages of our old dramatic writers show that it was a
fashion with the gallants of the time to do some extravagant feat as
proof of their love."
I quite agree with him, if he mean to say that the early dramatists ascribe
to their gallants a fashion which in reality belongs to the age of Du
Gueslin and the Troubadours. But Hamlet himself, in the context of the
passage in question, gives the key to his whole purport, when, after some
further extravagance, he says:
"Nay, an thoul't mouth,
I'll rant as well as thou."
That being so, why are we to conclude that each feat of daring is to be a
tame possibility, save only the last--the crowning extravagance? Why not
also the one preceding? Why not a feat equally of mere verbiage and rant?
Why not a river?
Adopting MR. HICKSON'S canon of criticism, the grammatical construction of
the passage requires that a definite substantive shall be employed to
explain the definite something that is to be done. Shakspeare says--
"Woul't drink up esile?"[9]
--a totality in itself, without the expression of quantity to make it
definite.
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