[443] See Nares's "Glossary," vol. ii. p. 673.
_Rabbit._ In "2 Henry IV." (ii. 2) this animal is used as a term of reproach, a sense in which it was known in Shakespeare's day. The phrase "cony-catch," which occurs in "Taming of the Shrew" (v. 1)--"Take heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catched in this business"--implied the act of deceiving or cheating a simple person--the cony or rabbit being considered a foolish animal.[444] It has been shown, from Dekker's "English Villanies," that the system of cheating was carried to a great length in the early part of the seventeenth century, that a collective society of sharpers was called "a warren," and their dupes "rabbit-suckers," _i. e._, young rabbit or conies.[445] Shakespeare has once used the term to express harmless roguery, in the "Taming of the Shrew" (iv. 1). When Grumio will not answer his fellow-servants, except in a jesting way, Curtis says to him: "Come, you are so full of cony-catching."
[445] See D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," vol. iii. p. 78.
_Rat._ The fanciful idea that rats were commonly rhymed to death, in Ireland, is said to have arisen from some metrical charm or incantation, used there for that purpose, to which there are constant allusions in old writers. In the "Merchant of Venice" (iv. 1) Shylock says:
"What if my house be troubled with a rat, And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats To have it baned?"
And in "As You Like It" (iii. 2), Rosalind says: "I was never so be-rhymed since Pythagoras' time, that I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember." We find it mentioned by Ben Jonson in the "Poetaster" (v. 1):
"Rhime them to death, as they do Irish rats, In drumming tunes."
"The reference, however, is generally referred, in Ireland," says Mr. Mackay, "to the supposed potency of the verses pronounced by the professional rhymers of Ireland, which, according to popular superstition, could not only drive rats to destruction, but could absolutely turn a man's face to the back of his head."[446]
[446] "The strange phrase and the superstition that arose out of it seem to have been produced by a mistranslation, by the English-speaking population of a considerable portion of Ireland, of two Celtic or Gaelic words, _ran_, to _roar_, to shriek, to bellow, to make a great noise on a wind instrument; and _rann_, to versify, to rhyme. It is well known that rats are scared by any great and persistent noise in the house which they infest. The Saxon English, as well as Saxon Irish, of Shakespeare's time, confounding _rann_, a rhyme, with _ran_, a _roar_, fell into the error which led to the English phrase as used by Shakespeare."--_Antiquarian Magazine and Bibliographer_, 1882, vol. ii. p. 9. "On Some Obscure Words and Celtic Phrases in Shakespeare," by Charles Mackay.