355 



Monday, January 24th, 1853. 



THOMAS ROMNEY ROBINSON, D. D., President, 

 in the Chair. 



The seal of a Bishop of Leighlin and Ferns was presented 

 by W. H. Hardinge, Esq. ; also, a pewter cast of a 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 (Act iii. sc. 2), 

 puts into the mouth of Rosalind the following reference to 

 this Irish legend : 



u 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. 2 N 



