RHYME. Johnson derives this word from the Greek rhythmus (J14111). Others derive it from the Swedish and Danish rim, the Dutch roe and the German rein. All the principal European nations use the same word to signify the same thing. Thus, the French have rime, the Italians rime, and the Spaniards rime. The Greek and Roman poets did not use rhyme,and the word rythmus was applied by both, in Its poetical meaning, to the metrical arrangement of syllables, and not to the correspondence of sound in their terminations. Rhyme was not used either by the Celtic or by the early Scandinavian nations. Thus the Irish and poems on which Macpherson founded his Poems of Ossian ' are without rhymes, as is also the Scandinavian peern of the' Lodbroker ' (Lodbroc's Death-Song). Rhyme, as an accompaniment of verse, cannot be traced farther back among European nations than to the ryniours of Normandy, the troubadours of Provence, the minnesinger' of Germany, and the monks, who, after the fall of the Roman empire, added rhyming terminations to the Latin metres which were chanted or sung in the church service. Rhyme was early employed by the Italian poets. The 'Divine Corn media' of Dante, the oldest of the great Italian poems, is in alternate rhymes. The early Spanish ballads sometimes have rhymes, some times only assonances (Assotenece], and sometimes, as in the old Spanish romance of The Cid,' are without either rhyme or assonance. The early Anglo-Saxon poetry is without rhyme, but it is sometimes used In the later. All the old English poetry has rhymes, which arc rude and imperfect, like the versification, but they are obviously an adjunct to the verse which could not be omitted.
Perfect rhymes arise from the identity of sound with which different words terminate—the identity, not the similarity. In monosyllables, or words which have the accent on the last syllable, to constitute a perfect rhyme it is necessary that the sound of the last accented vowel and of any letters which may follow it should be exactly the same as those of the word with which it rhymes. The sounds which precede
the last accented vowel must be different in the two words. The spelling is of no consequence ; the rhyme is in the sounds, not in the couventional signs by which the sounds are expressed. Thus no rhymes to so, but not to do, which rhymes to too or two ; great rhymes to hate, but not to heat, which rhymes to ,Beet; and so on. If the sounds of the last vowels, or of any of the following consonants, differ in any degree, however small, the rhyme is so far imperfect; thus, fore and more forin an imperfect rhyme, the sound of the o in love being not only shorter than that of the o in move, but to a certain extent different. These monosyllable or last-syllable rhymes are called male rhymes.
Another class of rhymes is formed from words in which the sceent is on the last syllable but one. In this class it is requisite that the sounds of the last vowel in the last syllable but one and of all the following letters should be the same as those with which they rhyme. Thus, desiring and respiring, descended and e.rtended, are perfect rhymes of this class. These are called female rhymes.
The principle of rhyming, once understood, the application is easy in all ensue. Thus, if the accent is on the last syllable but two, the sound of the last vowel of the last syllable but two, and of all the following lettere, must be the Ramo. Thus, sensible and extensible are perfect rhymes of this clam, but dissolute and resolute are imperfect rhymes, the vowels in the last syllable but two of both words having different The mine principle of rhyming applies to all the modern languages, as well as to the English. Imperfect rhymes are more or less freely used in all of them, according to circumstances. The English and German languages, which abound in consonants, and have for the most part consonant terminations, are more deficient in rhymes than the Italian and Spanish, which abound in vowels, and have for the most part vowel terminations.