CHAUCER. 271 



firms one's confidence in Tyrwhitt's good taste and 

 thoroughness. 



A writer in the " Proceedings of the Philological Soci- 

 ety" has lately undertaken to prove that Chaucer did not 

 sound the final or medial e, and throws us back on the 

 old theory that he wrote " riding-rime," that is, verse to 

 the eye and not the ear. This he attempts to do by 

 showing that the Anglo-Norman poets themselves did 

 not sound the e, or, at any rate, were not uniform in so 

 doing. It should seem a sufficient answer to this merely 

 to ask whence modern French poetry derived its rules of 

 pronunciation so like those of Chaucer, so different from 

 those of prose. But it is not enough to prove that 

 some of the Anglo-Norman rhymers were bad versifiers. 

 Let us look for examples in the works of the best poet 

 among them all, Marie de France, with whose works 

 Chaucer was certainly familiar. What was her practice 1 

 I open at random and find enough to overthrow the 

 whole theory : 



"Odsafille*kelecela 

 Tut li curages li fremi 

 Di mei, fet-ele par ta fei 

 La Dameisele 1'aporta 

 Kar ne li sembla mie boens 

 La dame 1'aveit apele"e 

 Et la mere 1'areisuna." 



But how about the elision ? 



" Le paK' esgarde sur le lit 

 Et ele' est devant li ale*e 

 Bele' amie [cf. mie, above] ne'il me celez. 

 La dame' ad sa fille' amende." 



These are all on a single page f, and there are some to 



* Whence came, pray, the Elizabethan commandement, chapelain, 

 turety, and a score of others? Whence the Scottish bonny, and so 

 many English words of Romance derivation ending in y f 



t Poesies de Marie de France, Tome I. p. 168. 



