s. 39. This shews one side of the argument. It is instructive to turn to a piece like The Complaint of the Black Knight, which we now know to be Lydgate's, as printed in the Aldine Chaucer, vi. 235. In the very first stanza we find _white_ riming with _brighte_ and _nighte_, which, to the student of Chaucer, is sufficiently astonishing. Other non-Chaucerian rimes are seen in _pitously_, _malady_ (st. 20), where the form should be _maladye_, and the same error occurs in st. 27; in _ageyn_, _tweyn_, _peyn_ (34), where the latter forms should be _tweyne_, _peyne_; in _forjuged_, _excused_ (40), which is not a true rime at all; in _ywreke_, _clepe_ (41), a mere assonance; in _feithfully_, _cry_ (65), where _I cry_ should rather be _I cry-e_; in _wrecche_, with short _e_, riming with _leche_, _seche_ (68); _seyn_, _peyn_ (for _peyn-e_, 82); _went_ (for _went-e_), pt. t., _shent_, pp. (93); _peyn_ (for _peyn-e_), _ayeyn_ (93); _quen-e_, dissyllabic, _seen_ (miswritten _sene_), monosyllabic, (97). Here are twelve difficulties in the course of ninety-seven stanzas; but there are more behind. For the test-words already given above would alone suffice. The riming of _s[=o]re_ with _tore_ (A.S. _toren_) has already been noticed, in s. 28. In st. 4, we find _sw['e]te_, sweet, paired off with _h[`e]te_, heat; in st. 18, we find _gr['e]ne_ paired off with _cl[`e]ne_; and in st. 86, we have _r[`e]de_, red, paired off with _sp['e]de_, to speed. That is, we have here four exceptions in the course of 97 stanzas, being more than can be found in the whole of Chaucer's genuine works put together. In fact, the indiscriminate riming of close and open _e_ is a capital test for Lydgate and for work of the fifteenth century. Using this test alone, we should see cause to suspect The Flower and the Leaf, which has three false rimes of this class, viz. _[`e]te_, to eat, _sw['e]te_, sweet (st. 13); _b[`e]te_, pp. beaten, actually riming with the pp. _set_ (31); and _gr['e]ne_ riming with _cl[`e]ne_ (42); not to mention that the author makes the dissyllabic words _wene_, _grene_, rime with the pp. _seen_ (36); and again, _grene_, _tene_ rime with the pp. _been_ (56); and yet again, _grene_ rime with the pp. _seen_ (57), and with _been_ (77). ON THIS POINT ALONE, the author differs from Chaucer SEVEN times[34]! The Court of Love differs from Chaucer in instances too many to enumerate; but, as to this particular point, I only observe the riming of _gr['e]ne_ with _cl[`e]ne_, l. 816; and of _d['e]re_ with _require_, l. 851; but we may alter _require_ to the Chaucerian form _requere_. At l. 79, we find the dissyllabic _grene_; it rimes with the monosyllable _been_.