s. 47. It is tedious to reply to special pleading of this kind. Thus, at p. 72, I am quoted, correctly, as objecting to the false rime in R. Rose, 1981, where the acc. pl. _feet_ is made to pair with the infinitive _lete_. And we are told that 'the force of this example is altogether impaired by the fact that in the Man of Lawes Tale (B 1104) the same plural rimes with the infin. _mete_.' So far from impairing my argument, the 'fact' strengthens it immensely; for, in that passage, we have no longer to do with the acc. _feet_, but with the _dative_ plural in the phrase _to fet-e_, answering to the A.S. phrase _to f[=o]tum_, which just makes all the difference. Correctly, it should be _to f[=o]te_; but the _[=e]_ was, by this time, so strongly associated with the plural use, that _to f[=e]te_ took its place. We see that the _e_ was sounded, because there is a third riming word, in the phrase _in the strete_. Stratmann's Dictionary duly notes this very passage. It is, however, true that Chaucer is not always consistent about this; he has _under fete_, riming with _swete_, Book of the Duchess, 399; _in a strete_, riming with _on my fete_, HF. 1049; but in the Cant. Tales, we find _at his feet_, A 2047; _al about hir feet_, A 2075; _unto his beddes feet_, A 4213. The one thing which he does not do is to use _fete_ in the accusative, which is precisely what the author of Fragment B of the Romaunt does; unless, as is more likely, he drops the _-e_ of the infin. _lete_, which Chaucer invariably keeps (at any rate when final). We can easily understand the suppression of a final _e_; but it is difficult to understand why a writer should invent one. Once more, when I argue that the rime of _entente_ with the adj. _present_ in R. Rose, 5869, does not accord with Chaucer's usage, the reply is made (p. 72) that _entent_ rimes with the pp. _shent_ in the Man of Lawes Tale (B 930). But it is clear that Chaucer here has _entente_ as usual, and rimes it with the form _shent-e_, which is the pp. treated as a _plural_ adjective; as in several other places. Next (on p. 72), Gower is rated for riming the prep. _for_ with the pp. _forlore_; Gower, C.A. ii. 239. But Gower's phrase is 'that thou art comen fore'; and I suspect that he knew the language of his own time. The _fore_ may answer to the A.S. _fore_, on account of (Grein, i. 320); or, more probably, _that ... fore_ was taken as the equivalent of _therfore_, which constantly takes the final _e_, as in Chaucer, E 1141.