a proposition may be used indifferently, in the
same time and circumstances giving exactly the same meaning.

MR. SINGER furnishes another instance (Vol. ii., p. 241.) of the value of
my canon. I think there can be no doubt that his explanation of the meaning
of the word _eisell_ is correct; but if it were not, any way of reading the
passage in which it occurs would lead me to the conclusion that it could
not be a river. _Drink up_ is synonymous with _drink off_, _drink to the
dregs_. A child, taking medicine, is urged to "drink it up." 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.

SAMUEL HICKSON.

September 18. 1850.

* * * * *

THE COLLAR OF ESSES.

I shall look with interest to the documents announced by Dr. ROCK (Vol.
ii., p. 280.), which in his mind connect the Collar of Esses with the
"Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus" of the Salisbury liturgy: but hitherto I have
found nothing in any of the devices of livery collars that partakes of
religious allusion. I am well aware that many of the collars of knighthood
of modern Europe, headed by the proud order of the Saint Esprit, display
sacred emblems and devices. But the livery collars were perfectly distinct
from collars of knighthood. The latter, indeed, did not exist until a
subsequent age: and this was one of the most monstrous of the popular
errors which I had to combat in my papers in the _Gentleman's Magazine_. A
Frenchman named Favyn, at the commencement of the seventeenth century,
published {330} a folio book on Orders of Knighthood, and, giving to many
of them an antiquity of several centuries,--often either fabulous or
greatly exaggerated,--provided them all with imaginary collars, of which he
exhibits engravings. M. Favyn's book was republished in English, and his
collars have been handed down from that time to this, in all our heraldic
picture-books. This is one important warning which it is necessary to give
any one who undertakes to investigate this question. From my own experience
of the difficulty