Ae: i 
re. ate 
Ree 
355 
Monpay, January 24TH, 1853. 
THOMAS ROMNEY ROBINSON, D.D., Presipen', 
in the Chair. 
Tue seal of a Bishop of Leighlin and Ferns was presented 
by W. H. Hardinge, Esq.; also, a pewter cast ofa bulla of 
Honorius II., and some fragments of ancient earthenware 
smoking-pipes, found near Drogheda; presented by J. T. 
Rowland, Esq. 
Dr. Todd made the following communication to the Aca- 
demy on the notices which occur in various writers, of the 
power said to be possessed by the Irish hereditary bards, of 
rhyming rats to death, or causing them to migrate by the 
power of rhyme. Allusions to this curious superstition are 
very frequent in writers of the Elizabethan age, and the fol- 
lowing century. Shakespeare, in As you like it (Acct iii. sc. 2), 
puts into the mouth of Rosalind the following reference to 
this Irish legend : 
“‘ Celia. But didst thou hear, without wondering, how thy 
name should be hang’d and carved upon these trees ? 
*¢ Rosalind. I was seven of the nine days out of the wonder 
before you came; for look here what I found on a palm tree; 
I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras’ time, that I was 
an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember.” 
The commentators on this passage of Shakespeare have 
collected several parallel passages from writers of the Eliza- 
bethan age, in which allusion is made to this superstition. 
Ben Jonson, for example, in his Poetaster (Epil. to the 
Reader) says: 
‘‘ Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats, 
In drumming tunes.” 
VOL. V. 2N 
