OBSERVATIONS ON THE LANGUAGE OF CHAUCER. 
487 
SILENT FINAL e. 
$ 84. E final seems especially liable to become 
silent when it follows r. 
The sound r is peculiarly unstable, and most Jan. 
guages, in their successive stages or in their dialects, 
afford instances of its being transposed, now standing 
before, now following a vowel, as Saxon gaers, grees ; 
Ital capre, Roman dial. erape; Eng. iron, apron, 
spectre, etc. In Wright's text of the Canterbury Tales 
we often find the terminations re and er indifferently 
used, as asondre, 5577, asonder (ur), 7256 f, 493 f. 
Of course we have no means of determining to what 
degree, if at all, the pronunciation er had begun to 
prevail even while the spelling re was retained. 
The Comparative Degree of Adjectives is commonly 
spelled with er in Chaucer (see $ 38, a), instead of 
the Saxon re, though both forms occur; as bettre, 
526, 650, better, 10416 f; lenger, 332, lengere, 823. 
Nouns which anciently ended in -ere generally or 
always end in -er, as hopper, 4034, miller, 3923, 
sleper, 16377, etc. (See $ 8.) We find many French 
words spelled both with re and er, as lettre, 5228, 5229, 
5241, letter, 10415f; cloystre, oystre, 181, 182, 
cloyster, oyster, 7681, 7682; chambre, 1073, cham- 
bur, 13145; tendre, 150, 9631, tender, 9617, etc. 
We also find the final e of some French words abso- 
lutely dropped; thus maner occurs most commonly 
without a final e, except at the end of a verse, 71, 
2546; 10501f, 11737 f; ryver (F. rivière) is rhymed, 
6466, with bacheler (F. bacheler), and 15148, with 
deer ; cheer (F. chére) once, 1342, with prisoner (Fr. 
prisonnier), though commonly pronounced cheeré. 
- In these cases ryvér must have been pronounced like 
our revere (ryve-er) and cheer che-er, instead of 
ryver-é, cheer-é, the r being in fact transposed. 
$ 85. The only rule with regard to e being silent 
after r which can safely be made general, is perhaps 
that 
e final is silent in the pronouns 
hiré, here (S. hire, E. her), 123, 128, 134, 461, 472, 
474, 475, etc., etc. ; very often spelt hir, see 16313, 
16329. 
heré (S. hira, E. their), 11, 32, 1018, 1639, 1805, 
2321, 2322, etc., etc. i 
ouré (S. ûre), 34, 921, 1110, 1284, 12599, 12600, 
13140, 14259, 14429, 14480, 14480, 14518, etc., etc. 
youré (S. eówer), 772, 785, 806, 831, 919, 922, 929, | 
1106, 1306, 1315, 1871, etc., etc. 
ouré, 6111, 6177, 14248, and youré, 16414, are 
decidedly doubtful. 
$ 86. ere:— e final is frequently silent in were. 
were (Indic. 2d pers. sing.), 15866, 15888, 17177. 
* (plural of Indic.) 18, 26, 59, 81, 2169, 2185, 
etc., etc. 
* (Subjunctive), 584, 877, 1213, 1216, 14229, 
14570, etc. ; written wer, 10782, 16280 
` (ner = ne wer). 
But not in the following cases : — 
weré (Indic. 2d pers. sing.), 4877, 16718. 
* (plural of Indic.), 326, 1705, 1966, 6893, 
12838, etc., etc. 
* (Subjunctive), 9483; 10529 may be read, and 
it weré good that such thing were y-knowe ; or, 
and 't weré good that such thing weré knowe. 
$87. There can be no doubt, however, that e 
final was generally pronounced after r. It is com- 
monly in the body of a verse, and for metre's sake, 
that the occasion is presented for dispensing with 
this sound ; rarely is it dropped for the sake of rhyme, 
though very often e is added on that account to words 
which ordinarily terminate in a consonant, — or, more 
properly speaking, of two existing forms, a rarer one 
in -e is often employed when the rhyme demands the 
final vowel, as yer by yere, 4552, rhyming with heere. 
The final e of deere (S. deóre) and of cheere 
(Fr. chère) was most distinctly pronounced. We 
should therefore be justified in inferring that the 
final e was pronounced in the following words, 
rhymed with deeré and cheeré, even if this fact 
could not be independently proved, as can be done 
in the case of most of the instances cited. 
deeré, 1236, 2455, 3361, cheeré, 749, 5422, 8411 
4238, 7363, 7405, 8932, 8554 (cheer, 8889, in 
15056, 16833, 17906. a suspicious line). 
The only exception 
noticed is 2334. 
Therefore, Therefore, 
heeré (adverb), 1821, heeré, 7884, 8245. 
3502, 3774. 
prayeré, 2261, 12184. 
