[1] Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations.”
[2] Being the substance of a Lecture delivered at the Opening of the Irish National Literary Society—in Dublin, Sir C. G. Duffy in the chair.
[3] But not now of entire words, as in the rime riche of the French, where livre (book) rhymes with livre (pound). English “perfect” rhyme is an incomplete word-echo, which secures some variety.
[4] Sporadic exceptions of course are found in Ovid’s occasional leonine lines. It is suggestive that he lived long and died amidst Scythians, from whom the Irish Gael deduce their descent.
[5] E.g., in its end-words: tracht, eácht, fuàcht, ruacht.
[6] These rhymes are more subtly complete than may be supposed, for the chiming syllables are enriched by this, that the preceding consonants d and g (as “soft”), and t and p (as “hard”), give class-chimes. Besides this, we have alliteration of two vowels in the first line, and of two consonants in the second.
[7] Hunt, “History of Bristol, 1884.”
[8] In the third line, the letters v and r are in (imperfect) concord. They belong to the same class of “light” consonants, from which it might be inferred that the ancient Irish did not roll the letter r.
[9] Thegan; Pithou: Opp. cvii.
[10] Malmesbury is a modification of Mailduff’s burg.