CHAUCER. 273 



diphthongs, the same occasional hiatus, the same compres 

 sion of several vowels into one sound where they imme 

 diately follow each other. Shakespeare and Milton would 

 supply examples enough of all these practices that seem 

 so incredible to those who write about versification with 

 out stifficient fineness of sense to feel the difference be 

 tween Ben Jonson's blank verse and Marlow's. Some 

 men are verse-deaf as others are color-blind, Messrs. 

 Malone and Guest, for example. 



I try Rutebeuf in the same haphazard way, and chance 

 brings me upon his " Pharisian." This poem is in stan 

 zas, the verses of the first of which have all of them 

 masculine rhymes, those of the second feminine ones, and 

 so on in such continual alternation to the end, as to show 

 that it was done with intention to avoid monotony. Of 

 feminine rhymes we find ypocrisie, fame, justice, mesure, 

 yglise. But did Rutebeuf mean so to pronounce them 1 

 I open again at the poem of the Secrestain, which is writ 

 ten in regular octosyllabics, and read, 



" Envie fet home tuer, 

 Et si fait bonne remuer 

 Envie greve', envie blece, 

 Envie' confont chnrite' 

 Envie' ocist humilite, 

 Estoit en ce pais en vie 

 Sanz orgueil ere' et sanz envi 

 La glorieuse, dame, chiere." * 



Froissart was Chaucer's contemporary. What was his 

 usage 1 



" J'avoie fait en ce voiuL"" 



Et jo li ill, ' Ma diiim" s'ni-je 



I'our vous eu nmint souvenir'; 



Mais jr. no. sui pus him hunlis 



De vous rcrnoustrcr, (lain/ rlijciv', 



Par (jurl :irt IK- par qurl nuinicrd, 



J'ai eu ce conionr.'mriit 



De I'amourous atouchtimcnt.' " 



* Rutebeuf, Tome I. pp. 203 seqq. 304 seqq. 



12* B 



