RHYME, or ItummE, is more properly, perhaps, written rime, as it does nut seem to be derived front the Greek rhythm, but to he a native Teutonic word. from the same root, probably. as Ger. reihc, a row, verb rethen, to array; also reihen, a song or a chain-dance, of which rein may be only a variety. In Ang.-Sax., rint-craift, meant the art of num bering; riman, to number; and thus rime, although a native Teutonic word, may ulti mately be from the same Aryan root as the Greek rhythm (q.v.), which etymolog sts derive from rhea, to flow. In early English. rhinme (and the same is true of Ger. t, iut and the other forms of the word in other northern tongues as well as in the Romanic) meant simply a poem, a numbered or versified piece (compare Lat. vumeri, numbers verses, versification); but it has now come to signify what is the most prominent mark of versification in all these tongues, namely, the recurrence of similar sounds at certain intervals. As there may be degrees and kinds of resemblance between two syl lables, there are different kinds of rhyme. When words begin with the same consonant, we have alliteration. (q.v.),which was the prevalent form of thyme in the earlier Teutonic poetry (e. g., Anglo-Saxon). In Spanish and Portuguese, there is a peculiar kind of rhyme called assonance, consisting in the coincidence of the vowels of the syllables, without regard to the consonants; this accords well with the character of the,e, languages, which abound in full-toned vowels, but is ineffective in English and other languages in which consonants predominate. In its more usual sense, however, rhyme denotes correspondence in the final syllables of words, and is chiefly used to mark the ends of the lines or verses in poetry. Complete identity in all the parts of the syllables constitutes what the French call rich rhyme, as in modi4e, fidele; beanie, saute. But
although such rhymes are not only allowed but sought after in French, they are consid ered faulty in English, or rather as not true rhymes at all. No one thinks of making deplore rhyme with explore. Ithymingsyllables in English] must agree in so far, and differ in so far; the vowel and what follows it—if anything follow it—must be the same in befit; the articulation before the vowel must be dTerent. Thus, mark rhymes with lark, bark, ark, but not with remark. In the case of mark and ark, the abs :nice of any initial articula tion in the last of the two makes the necessary difference. As an example of rhyme where nothing follows the vowel, we may take be-low, which rhymes with fore-ya, or with 0! but not with lo. To make a perfect rhyme, it is necessary, besides, that the syllables be both accented; lice and merrily can hardly be said to rhyme. It is almost needless to remark, that rhyme depends on the sound, and not on the spelling. P:augh and enough do not Indic a rhyme, nor ease and decease.
Such words as roaring, de-placing, form double rhymes; and annuity, gra-taity, triple rhimes. In double or triple rhymes, the first syllable must be accented, and the others ought to be unaccented, and to lie completely identical. In the sacred Latin hymns of the middle ages, the rhymes are all double or triple. This was a necessity of die Latin language, in which the inflectional terminations are without accent, which throws the accent in most cases on the syllable next the last—do-larum, vi-rorum ; sup-plwia, con Although rhymes occur chiefly between the end-syllables of different lines, they are not unfrequently used within the same line, especially in popular poetry: And then to see how ye're nettleckit, How huff" d, and earl, and disrespeckit, Burns.
And ice mast-high came floating by.
Coleridge.