I just note the rime of here (here) with were (perplexity);
H. Fame, 980. Were is of F. origin; and several such words have the close e; see Ten Brink, p. 48.
In the Legend of Good Women, 1870, we have the unusual rime there (there) with dere (dear). Ten Brink has noted this (p. 20). He remarks that it is the only example in which there seems to have close e; but it is rather one of three cases in which dere has open e (from A.S. dȳre).
These are all the difficulties which I could find, after a search through the Index to the Minor Poems. The only modifications they suggest are these: the word need is once found riming with heed (head); and the word dere (though it usually has a close e) really has unstable e (A.S. dēore, dȳre).
It is interesting to apply the results to other Poems.
The beautiful Roundels entitled Merciless Beauty answer the test surprisingly ([§ 4]). In the first stanza, the author uses the rimes sustene, kene, grene, quene, sene, where all the vowels are close, if we include sene, which has the variable e (close in Midland). In the second stanza, the rimes are pleyne, cheyne, feyne, atteyne, pleyne, all of French origin, in which the sound is slightly varied to that of the nearest diphthong. And in the third stanza, we find lene, bene, mene, v., clene, mene, s., in which the e is now open.
In the poem called A Compleint to his Lady, the final stanza of which, with Chaucer's name appended, was discovered by Dr. Furnivall after I had claimed it for Chaucer, every rime is entirely perfect, and many of them are highly characteristic of him, being used elsewhere very freely.
The poem which I have called An Amorous Complaint has every rime perfect, except in l. 16, where the author rimes do (with close o) with wo, go (with open o). It has already been shown that Chaucer frequently does this very thing ([§ 29]).
[§ 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 sōre with tore (A.S. toren) has already been noticed, in [§ 28]. In st. 4, we find swéte, sweet, paired off with hète, heat; in st. 18, we find gréne paired off with clène; and in st. 86, we have rède, red, paired off with spéde, 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. ète, to eat, swéte, sweet (st. 13); bète, pp. beaten, actually riming with the pp. set (31); and gréne riming with clène (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]]!