THE RIMES IN THE AUTHENTIC POEMS OF WILLIAM DUNBAR. 659 



d) OE. u (see § 104). 



e) Fr. i. 



uther (OE. ofer) : consydder, 356, 35. 



f) Fr. oe, tie, etc. 



scules : dulis (OFr. doel, duel, deul, duil), 316, 23. 



g) Fr. or Lat. o. 



sculis : fullis, 316, 24. bosum : ebriosum, 212, 33. 

 h) OF. or Lat. u, Fr. ii. 



moune : Joun (NE. June), 86, 30. tone, 86, 29. 



none : tone, 233, 19. 



gud : blude : pulchritud, 121, 2. 



gud : blude : pulchritud, 92, 5. 



cuill : muill, 277, 61. stud : mansuetude, 94, 15. 



russ (ON. hrosa, NE. praise) : dois : refuss, 260, 

 36. 



dnkis : ruikis, 226, 119. 



gud : conclude, 279, 22. 

 „ : selsitude, 121, 7. 

 j) OF. oi. 



rois : rejoiss, 99, 158. 

 k) OF. oui. 



sculis : trulis (?), 315, 22. 



§ 92. The numerous rimes of o with itself, the spelling with oi and u as though 

 identical in sound, point to the change of o to an M-sound = NSc. ui in guid, bluid, &c. 

 The spelling oi no doubt indicates a modification (Umlaut) of the vowel, i.e., of the 

 disrounded (entrundet) 6, which— not giving a pure w-sound, still converging towards 

 it — may, without straining, be held to give us approximately an M-souncl. The whole 

 history of the passage of the OE. 5 into a sound which eventually coincided with Fr. ii, 

 and is represented by the NSc. ui, is one of great interest and difficulty. Dr Curtis 

 has treated it with great learning, and at great length, in his Dissertation on Clariodus 

 (§ 459, etc., and §§ 468-482), and in the main his conclusions are to be accepted. But 

 at once the most concise and the clearest treatment of the point seems to me to be that 

 of Professor Luick (Untersuch., § 123, etc.). Dr Gerken prefers the purely phonetic 

 explanation of Professor Luick to Dr Curtis's suggestion of French influence, and no 

 doubt it is the more satisfactory, but still it is necessarily of the nature of an hypothesis, 

 while French influence was an historical fact, probably traceable in other phenomena of 

 the kind, as I have suggested in the matter of the Scotch dropping of the /-sound. 

 But, I ask, is there any reason to suppose the factors in this problem mutually exclusive ? 

 may they not both be valid ? Professor Luick derives smoivh from OE. smuca 

 (Untersuch., § 469). 



§ 93. 2. o + ht rimes with 



a) itself, 

 thocht : brocht, 115, 58. 248, 2. 

 thocht, 330, 5. 335, 4. ocht : nooht, 115, 58. 



b) OE. 5ht. 



thocht : wrocht, 138, 101. 248, 2. 

 „ : flocht (?), 335, 2. 



After the very thorough manner in which Dr Curtis has treated the development of 

 o + ht and a + lit in Scotland, there remains little to be said. But it is interesting to 

 note that my table of rimes gives almost the same results as the list of Clariodus, in 

 that only o/^-sounds are rimed together. I obtain this result, as does Dr Curtis, by 

 deriving ocht and nocht from the forms owiht, no-wiht, and this, of course, goes to 

 confirm Dr Curtis's position that oht developed no parasitical u in MSc. The vowel 

 in MSc. seems to be short, otherwise it would surely have shown more tendency to get 

 mixed up with words in aucht from mht and aht, for the difference in the quality is not 

 very great. This difference persists in NSc. where words like bocht, thocht, etc., and 

 aucht (eight), straught (straight), etc., are chiefly distinguished by longer quantity of 



