no Roman poet could have intended, nor a Roman ear have noticed, a rhyme between ‘tristia’ and ‘bella;’ especially as the different metrical value of the two syllables modified the sound of the two _a_’s. Grimm seems not to have been able to free himself altogether from the propensity of biographers to overrate the importance of their heroes. However, in innumerable other cases rhyme has decidedly been used of set purpose by the Roman poets, especially where the corresponding words are found either in the chief cæsura and the end of the same verse, or at the end of two verses following each other. Of both cases an example may be cited from Horace, whose fine ear and ability to avail himself of beauties of rhythm and sound make him an important witness for the intentional use of rhyme. Ille gravem du_ro_ terram qui vertit arat_ro_,[33] affords an excellent instance of rhyme in the chief cæsura; while the lines Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto Et quocumque volent animum auditoris agunto,[34] prove even the existence of a sort of feminine rhyme in Latin poetry. Horace also shows how the Roman poets used the rhyme for onomatopoetic purposes. In the celebrated line, Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus,[35] the quick jump of the little animal could not have been better illustrated than by the rhyme of the two words immediately following each other—‘Schlagreim,’ as the German meistersingers appropriately call it. Though there can be no doubt that the Latin poets of the classic period knew and occasionally used rhyme, it never was to them of the same vital importance that it is to modern poets; and in fact it never could be, so long as the rhythmical accent preserved its unlimited power; for this is decidedly unfavourable to rhyme. In all those cases, for instance, where the chief cæsura of the hexameter rhymed with the end of the same verse, which, as we have seen, was the usual way, the two corresponding syllables had different metrical accents. In the line already cited, Īllĕ grăvēm dūr_ō_ tērrām quī vērtĭt ărātr_ŏ_, the _o_ of _duro_ stands in the arsis, and therefore has quite a different sound from the _o_ in _aratro_, which stands in the thesis. This becomes the more evident in those very rare cases where the rhyme in this position contains two syllables, or is, as we should say, feminine. In Horace there is only one instance of this; and indeed what could be the use of a rhyme which, if the verse were read according to rhythmical principles, would be scarcely audible?— Frātrēm mœ̄_rēntīs’_ rāptō dē frātrĕ dŏ_lēn’tĭs_.[36] But by the same fact the destructive influence of rhyme on the rhythmical principle becomes evident. The line, for instance, already quoted from Godfrey of Viterbo, would, if properly scanned, have sounded thus: Mētră tĭbē _fīdūs’_ rēgālĭă dāt Gŏtĕf_rī’dŭs_.