cufed by the allowed license of the age: where authority failed he would have recourse (but soberly) to etymology and analogy; and if after all a few paflages remained not reducible to the ftrict laws of metre by any of the methods above-mentioned, if he were really (as I have fuppofed him) a sensible critick hé would be apt rather to expect patiently the folution of his difficulties from more correct manufcripts, or a more complete theory of his author's verfification, than to cut the knot by deciding peremptorily that the work was compofed without any regard to me❤ trical rules.

$12. I beg leave to purfue the fame course with refpect to Chaucer. The great number of verfes founding complete even to our ears, which is to be found in all the leaft corrected copies of his Works, authorizes us to conclude that he was not ignorant of the laws of metre. Upon this conclufion it is impoffible not to ground a strong prefumption that he intended to obferve the fame laws in the many other verfes which feem to us irregular; and if this was really his intention, what reaion can be affigned fufficient to account for his having failed fo grofsly and repeatedly, as is generally fuppofed, in an operation which every ballad monger in our days, man, woman, or child, is known to perform with the most unerring exactness, and without any extraordinary fatigue?

§ 13. The offences against metre in an English verfe, as has partly been obferved before, must arife either from a fuperfluity or deficiency of fyllables, or from the accents being improperly placed.

§14. With respect to the first species of irregula→ rity, I have not taken notice of any fuperfluitics in Chaucer's verfes but what may be reduced to just Volume I.

meafure by the ufual practices (66) of even modern pects; and this, by the way, is a ftrong proof of his real attention to metrical rules; for otherwife, if he had written without any restraint of that kind, a certain proportion of his deviations from measure mult in all probability have been on the fide of excefs.

$ 15. But a great number of Chaucer's verfes labour under an apparent deficiency of a fyllable or two. In fome of thefe perhaps the defect may fill be fupplied from mif. but for the greatest part I am perfuaded no fuch affistance is to be expected (67);

(66) It is unneceffary to trouble the reader with an enumeration of fyncope, apoftrophus, fynecphonetis, &'c.

Quicquid habent telorum armamentaria vatum.

They may all, I think, be comprehended in our language under this one general principle, that an English verse, though chiefly compofed of feet of two fyllables, is capable of receiving feet of three fyllables in every part of it, provided only one of the three fyllables be accented.---- In fhort, whoever can tafte the metrical harmony of the following lines of Milton will not be embaraffed how to difpofe of the (feemingly) fuperfluous fyllables which he may meet with in Chaucer ; P. L. ii. 123. Ominous | conjecture on the whole fuccefs.

302. A pillar of ftáte | ; deep on his front engra.

ven---

658. Celestial fpirits in bón | dage, nor the abyss-v. 495. No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare. vii. 122. Things not revealed, which the invifible

King---

(67) I would not be thought to undervalue the mff. which I have not feen, or to difcourage thofe who may have inclination and opportunity to confult them; I only mean to fay that where the text is fupported (as it generally is in this edit.) by the concurrence of two or three good iff. and the fenfe is clear and complete, we may fafely confider it as tolerably cor

and therefore fuppofing the text in these cafes to be correct, it is worth confidering whether the verfe alfo may not be made correct by adopting, in certain words, a pronunciation different indeed from modern practice, but which we have reafon to believe was ufed by the Author himfelf.

For inftance, in the genitive cafe fingular and the plural number of nouns (which as has been remarked above in the time of Chaucer had the fame expreffion) there can be no doubt that fuch words as foures, ver. I, croppes, ver. 7, fires, ver. 15, lordes, ver. 47, &c. were regularly pronounced as confifting of two fyllables: whenever they are used as monofyllables it must be confidered as a poetical licenfe, warranted however even then (as we may prefume from the natural progress of our language) by the practice of innaccurate speakers in common converfation.

In like manner we may be fure that ed, the regular termination of the past tense and its participle, made or contributed to make a fecond fyllable in the words perced, ver. 2, bathed, ver. 3, loved, ver. 45, wered, ver. 75, 5. (68.) The first step toward re

rect. In the courfe of the Notes I shall have occafion to point out feveral passages in which either the disagreement of the good mff. or the obfcurity of their readings makes a further inquiry abfolutely neceffary in order to fettle the text.

(68) It appears from the Preface to the last edition of Chaucer's Works, Lond. 1721, that Mr. Urry, the undertaker of that edition, had the fame opinion with respect to the pronunciation of the final fyllables in this and the laft mentioned inftance, and that it was his intention to diftinguith thofe fyllables, whenever they were to be pronounced, by printing them with an i inftead of an e, as fhouris, fhiris, percid, lovid, c. As fuch a diftinction is entirely unfupported by the mff. and muft neceffarily very much disfigure the orthography of the lan

ducing words of this form to monofyllables feems to have been to shorten the last fyllable, either by tranf pofing the final letters, as in-wolde, ver. 144, foyde, ver. 763, &c. or by throwing away the d, as in

coffe, ver. 1910, cafte, ver. 2083, &c. In both thefe, cafes the words ftill remained of two fyllables, the final e being founded as an e feminine; but they were prepared to lofe their laft fyllable by the eafy licenfe of changing an e feminine into ane mute, or of dropping it entirely, according to the modern practice.

§ 16. But nothing will be found of fuch extenfive ufe for fupplying the deficiencies of Chaucer's metre as the pronunciation of the e feminine; and as that pronunciation has been for a long time totally antiquated, it may be proper here to fuggeft fome reafons for believing (independently of any arguments to be drawn from the practice of Chaucer himself) that the final guage, I cannot think that an editor has a right to introduce it upon ever fo plaufible a pretence. A fhorter, and in my opinion a less exceptionable, method would have been to have diftinguithed the fyllables of this fort, whenever they were tos be contracted, by adding a fign of fyncope, thus, secure's, (hire's, perce'd, love'd. But after all, a reader who cannot perform fuch operations for himself had better not trouble his head about the Verification of Chaucer.-Mr. Urry had also discovered that, the final e (of which I thall treat more at large in the next section) often made a fyllable in Chaucer's verse, and (according to the Preface quoted above) he “always marked with an accent, when he judged it neceffary to pronounce it, as fructè, halve,fmate, ver. 5, 8, 9." I have the fame objection to this mark that I have to innovations in orthography, and befides, that, it would be apt to mislead the ignorans reader (for whom only it can be intended) by making him fuppofe that the e fo parked was really to be accented, whereas the true e feminine is always to be pronounced with an obfcure evanefcent found, and is incapable of bearing any firefs or accent.

é in our ancient language was very generally pronounced as the e feminine is at this day by the French.

With respect to words imported directly from France, it is certainly quite natural to fuppofe that for fome time they retained their native pronunciation, whether they were nouns fubftantive, as hofte, ver. 753, face, ver. 1580, &c.or adjectives, as large, ver. 755, frange, ver. 13, &c.—or verbs, as grante, ver. 12756, preche, ver. 12327, &c.; and it cannot be doubted that in these and other fimilar words in the French language the final e was always pronounced, as it ftill is, fo as to make them diffyllables.

We have not indeed fo clear a proof of the original pronunciation of the Saxon part (69) of our language; but we know, from general obfervation, that

(69) This is owing to the Saxons not having left us any metrical compofitions, as has been obferved before, p. 126. Hickes complains [Gr. A. S. c. xxiii. § 7,] that it is difficult to know "of how many fyllables a Saxon verfe fometimes confifts, for "this reafon among others, quod non conftat quomodo voces in "e fuminino vel obfcuro terminate pronuntiandæ funt in car"mine." He might (perhaps with more propriety) have complained that it is difficult to know how words ending in e feminine are to be pronounced in a Saxon verfe, because it is uncertain of how many fyllables any of their verfes confilled. I have mentioned in the text two cafes of words abbreviated, in which I think we might conclude from general reasoning that the final was pronounced. As this theory, with respect to thefe words, is entirely confirmed by the practice of Orin, (the moft authentick metrical compofer that we have in our ancient language) it would not perhaps be unreasonable to infer that the practice of Orm, in other words of Saxon original in which the final e is pronounced, is confonant to the old Saxon ufage. However that may be, the practice of Orm mull certainly be adinitted to prove that fuch a pronunciation prevalled at least 150 years before Chaucer.