sion have arisen, in this manner, from the accidental associations of similar sounds. How far the crowd of such terminations, afforded by the Dictionary of Walker, may enhance or impair this advantage, none but the poets, who plead guilty to the pleasant accusation of Du Bos, can determine. When the peculiar and prevailing character of Arabian verse is considered, it cannot be surprising that dictionaries of rhymes, should have been almost coeval with their poetry. The monorhyme, as it is called, is the most common form (Sismondi Lit. du midi de l'Eur, tom. i. p. 101): and it is equally adopted in the ghazelle and the casside, which embrace almost the entire mass of Arabian and Persian poetry. "One favourite rhyme," says Hindley, (Pref. to his Persian Lyrics, p. 13) "is characteristic of each ghazelle, and invariably terminates every couplet." Such poems are written in distichs: the first line of each having no rhyme; but the second, throughout the poem, having the same termination. It is thus with the moâllakát or works of the Arabian Pleiades, suspended in the Caaba at Mecca. There are but six rhymes (li, di, mi, ha, mi, ma, and ao) in the seven poems, each having one prevailing final sound, from the second to the last line, (Works of Sir William Jones, vol. iv. p. 245, 4to.) In the composition of such verses, it is obvious, that the Arabian poets would have to contend with. difficulties of perpetual recurrence, and not less formidable in a poem of similar length, than those of Pindar, when he rejected, in the structure of an ode, every word containing the letter S. We know not whether the Persian poet has ever had the same advantages as the Arabian; but neither certainly could make any progress, compared with the couplet or even octave rhymers of modern Europe, without the aid of a rhyming lexicon. Such a work would, indeed, be indispensable to the mono-rhymist of the Mohammedan school: and as necessity is man's first instructor, such dictionaries would appear to be the natural offspring of their system of versification. A dictionary of rhymes would be as unintelligible to a Greek or Roman poet, as an English orator would esteem it useless to have instructions, like those of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, explanatory of the composition of prose sentences from poetical feet. The very fact then, that the character and objects of such * Tryphiodorus, facilè princeps of Lipogrammatists, wrote an Odyssey, in which he omitted each letter of the alphabet successively in the twenty-four books. Indeed, Eustathius says, he excluded the letter S, from the whole poem. Proba Falconia, (who wrote some portions of Scripture History in 700 lines, selected from Virgil) and Publil. Optatianus Porphyrius, (who wrote the Organon, consisting of 52 lines, the first 26 all of the same measure, and each having just 18 letters, the last 26 all hexameters, yet increasing by an additional letter at each step) were worthy compeers of our Lipogrammatic poet. a lexicon as Walker's, would be incomprehensible to a classic poet, demonstrates the existence of a state of things in modern poetry, entirely unknown to the ancients. Whence has arisen this state of things: in other words, to whom, to what age, to what country, do we owe the invention of rhyme? If, indeed, rhyme deserves the anathema of the French romance of Charlemagne, it would ill merit the pains we are about to expend, in tracing its genealogy. "Nus contes rymés n'en est vrais: tot mensonge ce qu'ils dient." The romances of that day may, perhaps, have been worthy of our chronicler's indignation. But we are fain to believe, that rhyme has been too long and too frequently associated with beauty and sublimity, truth and usefulness, in some of the finest strains of modern poetry, to be now excluded from the literary company of antique verse or modern prose. Rhyme, says Milton, is the modern bondage; and Voltaire writes, "La rime est necessaire à nos jargons nouveaux; "Enfans demi-polis des Normands et des Goths;" while the Abbé du Bos calls it "a mere flash, which disappears after having given only a short-lived splendour." Par. i. c. 36. "Nihil æquè gravitati orationis officit, quàm in sono ludere syllabarum." Voss. de Poem. cant. When a north-country gentleman, surprised at Dryden's admiration of Paradise Lost, exclaimed, "Why, Mr. Dryden, it is not rhyme:" "No," replied the poet," nor would I have my Virgil in rhyme, if I were to begin it again." And the same author consecrates this sentiment, in his epistle to Lord Roscommon, when he says "Then Petrarch followed, and in him we see "What rhyme, improved in all its heighth can be, "At best, a pleasing sound, and fair barbarity." But assuredly, all who have an accomplished taste, however severely modelled on the classic standard, must admit, that many of the poets of Italy, Spain, France and England, who have written in rhyme, justify the sentiment of the Abbé Batteux, when, having placed side by side, a passage of Virgil and one of Racine, he says, in reference to the latter, "Les Grecs et les Latins auroient admiré ces vers." Doubtless they could not but have admired the rhymed poetry of the masters of the modern school. Their ignorance indeed of the true pronunciation, might possibly have placed them in the situation of Gombaud, as described in his epigram on St. Amand :— "Tes vers sont beaux, quand tu les dis, Mais ce n'est rien, quand je les lis; Fais en donc que je puisse lire." The origin of rhyme is unquestionably obscure. It may well be doubted, whether any one person was the sole inventor of rhyme in its perfect state, for what Schlegel says of Gothic architecture, may be well applied to rhyme: "I doubt, indeed, very much, whether it was ever brought to perfection by any one great architect; for, in that case, it is difficult to believe that his name would have been forgotten." And Shuckford remarks, with respect to letters, that we have "no account of any one person being the author of them," in the post-diluvian world; because, as he thinks, they were known far beyond the memory of man, even at that day. "Ni la poudre à canon, ni la boussole, ni les chiffres, ni le papier ne sont indiqués nulle part, comme des découvertes." (1 Sism. p. 74.) Such seems to be very much the state of the fact, as to the invention of rhyme, wherever it is found. The author, in the primitive obscurity and in the subsequent common use of his invention, appears to have been consigned to oblivion, illustrating Seneca's thought, "Heu quàm difficilis gloriæ custodia est.” It is one question, who first composed in rhyme; but quite a distinct one, who first gave it currency, by a various, frequent, popular use of it. A succession of attempts, probably reduced to settled forms and fixed rules, the scattered, accidental thoughts of several minds. "Nemo nostrûm," says a translator of Galen, "sufficit ad artem simul constituendam et absolvendam; sed satis superque videri debet, si quæ multorum annorum priores invenerint, posteri accipientes, atque his adducentes aliquid, aliquando compleant, atque perficiant." There is, indeed, no department of human knowledge, which has not grown up in this manner, by gradual additions and improvements. It might well be supposed, that the derivation of the word rhyme, would be a key to its origin; yet it is not remembered, that any writer has taken this view of the subject. Dr. Johnson derives it from pubμos Greek, and rhythme French; but this must be condemned as an error. Rhythm, indeed, is derived from rhythme, rhythmus, pues; but rhyme doubtless comes to us from the same source as the French "rime." Words corresponding to our English words, "rhyme" and "rhythm," are found, it is believed, in most, if not in all of the other European languages, in which rhyme is a familiar form of verse.* Thus we have in German, "reim" for rhyme, "rhythmus" for rhythm, and rhytmisch" for rhythmical. In French, "rime" for rhyme, and "rhythme" for rhythm. In Italian "rima" for rhyme, and "ritmo" for rhythm. In Spanish, "rima" for rhyme, and "ritmo" for rhythm. In Portuguese, we have both "rima" and “rhythmo" for rhyme: in Danish, "rim" for rhyme, so also in Dutch, “rym” for rhyme; in Polish, “rim” and in Swedish, "rim" for rhyme; while the Russian The significations of rhyme and rhythm are totally different; rhyme designating the recurrence of similar final sounds, but rhythm "the proportion, which the parts of a motion bear to each other;" or, as Cicero says, "Quicquid sub aurium mensuram aliquam cadit, etiam si abest à versu, numerus vocatur, qui Græci rhythmos vocantur. "Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in It is the only language, in which we have found a word derived from pulues, viz. "rithma" given as the only one for rhyme; and no separate word for rhythm. It is true that in the dictionary of the Spanish Academy, ritmo is explained "lo mismo que rima;" yet is also explained as signifying "armonia o numen oratorio." Whenever a Latin dictionary is combined with one of a vulgar tongue, we find that "rhyme" is rendered by "rhythmus," plainly, because that is the only Latin word which can be used. It is worthy of remark also, that in English, German and Swedish, "rim," and in Saxon, "rima" signify border, margin or edge. It is also singular that the Portuguese and Spanish have a peculiar meaning for their word "rima," unconnected with its northern parentage, but equally so with pulues and rhythmus, viz. a heap, congeries, or, as the Spanish Academy has it, " el conjunto de cosas puestas en orden unas sobre otras." The Spanish has also a separate meaning for the verb "rimar,” viz. to seek, doubtless from the Latin “rimari;” but that "rimar" to rhyme, in Spanish, did not come from the Latin "rimari," may be fairly inferred from the fact, that the Italian has no such meaning for "rimare.' is also worthy of notice, that in the Northern languages, every word compounded of rim, rym, reim, with only one exception, that we have discovered, is formed of the northern word for rhyme, and some other word of the same lineage. Now it is so uncommon to find words of the Northern and Southern languages, combined together, that we may take it for granted, as a general rule, that such a combination is an exception, and that the fact of actual composition, as in the present instance, of "rym," " ," "reim," "rim," with northern words, is a very strong proof, that those words are themselves of the same family with these. It is no objection to the distinctive meaning and derivation of "rhyme" and "rhythm," that we find the former used by a synecdoche, for poetry generally, for verse. and even (as Johnson supposes, we think incorrectly, by his citation from Denham) for rhythm, or a harmonical succession of sounds. Johnson, it is to be observed, does not give rhythm (as an English word) except in a quotation under "rhyme" from Phillips; though he does insert "rhythmical." We think it very remarkable, that every northern language, including Teutonic and Saxon, excepting only Russian, has its appropriate and evidently in all of them identical word for rhyme. Whereas, many of them have no derivative word rhythm, but only a word of corresponding or somewhat synonymous meaning as Swedish meter, metre: Dutch, kadans, metre; and the same is true of Portuguese, where they have metro, for metre. With regard to the languages of the South of Europe, including French, and German and English, as connected with them, partly through the French and partly through the classic languages, it is not surprising that we should find in all of them, the word rhythm (itself of uncertain etymology, Diction. des c. 4 vol. supplem. p. 648) as a derivative of the Greek pupos: but it appears to us very obvious, that the word rhythm is a modern word in all those languages, and would not have been adopted, with its Greek and Latin meaning, by scholars, as it certainly was, unless the pre-existent word rhyme had signified something totally different, and was understood not to have been derived from the Greek or Latin root, pvbuss or rhythmus. Besides, if we consider the imperfect state of the vulgar tongues, when rhyme was first known to them, and the very obvious character of rhyme, as addressed to the eye and the ear; and if we consider, moreover, that those languages, however rude, had their poetry and music long before, and possessed such common words, to supply the place of the term rhythm, as other languages had employed, such as number and measure; but that they had no appropriate word for rhyme, it seems a very fair conclusion, that a name for rhyme would have been almost coeval with its existence; whilst the word "rhythm" would have been most probably introduced only after the classic cultivation of the modern tongues. the title to the 17th chapter of his work, on the arrangement of words, uses uues as synonymous with is number; but, however poetical license may be an excuse, no critic would use the word rhyme as synonymous with rhythm. It appears to us, that the word rhyme in English, and the corresponding words in other languages, have a northern and not a classic origin. Junius, in his Etymol. Anglic, derives it from "reim," Belgic and Danish. Lye's Saxon and Gothic Latin Dictionary derives it from "rim"-numerus, riman-to count: and gives, as the original meaning of rim-ora, margo, labrum, which corresponds exactly with the essential character of rhyme, as consisting of final sounds, on the edge, margin or lip of each verse. Bailey traces it to the Saxon rime and the Teutonic reim. Skinner's Etymologicon gives us the same Teutonic origin. On the above authorities then, we hold, that the word rhyme belongs to the family of northern languages; whether we trace it to riman, numerare, to count, by analogy to the synonymes of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, or to rim, ora, edge. In addition to the arguments, to be hereafter offered against the Arabic origin of rhyme, does it not appear a very strong proof, that whilst even the Spanish language has no word for rhyme, derived from the Arabic, it has the same word, common to all the Northern and Southern nations of Gothic origin? The opinions of learned men have been various, as to the source, to which the origin and use of rhyme in the modern poetry of Christian Europe, are to be traced. There are four theories on this subject. One supposes that the first settlers of Europe brought rhyme with them from the east. A second, that it is of Arabic origin. A third, that it is due to the Northern nations; and the fourth ascribes it to the invention of monks. First, as to the supposition, that the use of rhyme was coeval with the first settlement of Europe. "Il est très possible," says Sismondi, (vol. i. p. 100) que les Goths, dès leur premiére entrée en Europe, aient apporté l'usage de la rime, des pays de l'orient, dóù ils venaient." Runalfus Jonas, in his dissertation on the elements of the Northern languages, does not scruple to assert, that the mythology of the Edda, and probably, a great part of the Edda itself, is as ancient as the time, when the Asiatics first came into the North of Europe. The Phoenicians, says Schlegel, were, for many ages, in possession of the Baltic. (1 Schlegel, 262.) Warton, in his history of English Poetry, (vol. i. 1st Diss.) gives us, from original authorities, an account of the emigration of these ancient inhabitants of Iberia and Albania, in the time of Pompey, with many curious coincidences between the Asiatics and Scandinavians. "While the Persians" says Schlegel, |