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 examjjles enough of all these practices that seem 

 so incredible to those who write about versification with- 

 out sufficient fineness of sense to feel the difference be- 

 tween Ben Jonson's blank verse and Mai'low'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, 

 ygiise. 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 liome tuer, 

 Et si fait bonne remuer — 

 Envie greve', envie blece, 

 Envie confont cbarite 

 Envie' ocist humilite, — 

 Estoit en ce pais en vie 

 Sanz orgueil ere' et sanz envie — 

 La glorieuse, dame, chiere." * 



Froissart was Chaucer's contemporary. What was his 

 usage 1 



" J'avoie fait en ce voiaige 

 Et je li di, ' Ma dame s'ai-je 

 Pour vous en raaint souvenir' ; 

 Mais je ne sui pas bien hardis 

 De vous remonstrer, dame chiere. 

 Par quel art ne par quel maniere, 

 J'ai eu ce comencement 

 De I'amourous atouchement.' " 



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



12* _ R 



