2092. After examining carefully the rimes in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Mr. Bradshaw finds that this is the sole instance in which a word which ought etymologically to end in -yë is rimed with a word ending in -y without a following final e. A reason for the exception is easily found; for Chaucer has here adopted the swing of the ballad metre, and hence ventures to deprive chiualryë of its final e, and to call it chivalry' so that it may rime with Gy, after the manner of the ballad-writers; cf. Squyre of Lowe Degre, 79, 80. So again chivalryë, druryë become chivalry, drury; ll. 2084, 2085. We even find plas for plac-e, 1971; and gras for grac-e, 2021.
2094. glood, glided. So in all the MSS. except E., which has the poor reading rood, rode. For the expression in l. 2095, compare—
'But whenne he was horsede on a stede,
He sprange als any sparke one [read of] glede';
Sir Isumbras, ed. Halliwell, p. 107.
'Lybeaus was redy boun,
And lepte out of the arsoun [bow of the saddle]
As sperk thogh out of glede';
Lybeaus Disconus, in Ritson, ii. 27.
'Then sir Lybius with ffierce hart,