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."

[444] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 189.

[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