And my great mind most kingly drinks it up.'
"Again, in Timon of Athens:
'And how his silence drinks up his applause.'
"In Shakspeare's time, as at present, to drink up often meant no more than simply to drink. So in Florio's Italian Dictionary, 1598: 'Sorbire, to sip or sup up any drink.' In like manner we sometimes say, 'When you have swallowed down this potion,' though we mean no more than, 'When you have swallowed this potion.'"
In his second edition, however, Malone abandoned his first interpretation, and his remarks on drink up then went for nothing.
Discussion on this point has occupied some paragraphs in "NOTES AND QUERIES." MR. SINGER, in his first paper (Vol. ii., p. 241.), asserts that "to drink up was commonly used for simply to drink." MR. HICKSON, too (No. 51.), affirms that "drink up is synonymous with drink off, drink to the dregs," and observes that "a child taking medicine is urged to drink it up. But H. K. S. C., or Mr. H. K. S. CAUSTON, as he afterwards signs himself, denies that drink up can be used of eysell, or any other liquid, unless a definite quantity of it be signified; that is, you may say to any one, if you please, in allusion to a definite quantity of vinegar, "Drink it up;" but if you allude to vinegar in general, without limitation of quantity, you will say merely, "Drink vinegar." So if you would ask your friend whether he drinks wine or water, you would say, "Do you drink wine or water?" not "Do you drink up wine or water?" which would be to ask him whether he drinks up all the wine or water in the world, or at least all the definite quantities of either that come within his reach. MR. SINGER professes not to understand this doctrine, and refers MR. CAUSTON to the nursery rhyme:
"Eat up your cake, Jenny,
Drink up your wine,"
"which," he says, "may perhaps afford him further apt illustration;" but which supplies, MR. CAUSTON rejoins, only another example that drink up is applied to definite quantity; a quantity which, in this case, is "neither more nor less than the identical glass of wine which Jenny had standing before her." The line in Shakspeare's 114th Sonnet is, MR. CAUSTON adds, "a parallel passage." To drink up, therefore, he concludes, must be used of "a noun implying absolute entirety, which might be a river, but could not be grammatically applied to any unexpressed quantity." In these remarks there seems to be great justness of reasoning. MR. CAUSTON might also have instanced the lines:
"Freely welcome to my cup,