words which are found to rhyme there may be used as rhymes anywhere
else, and no others. The result is, that the number of rhyme-groups is
restricted to 106; and not only that, but of course words which rhymed
to the ear five hundred years B.C. do so no longer in 1902. Yet such are
the only authorised rhymes to be used in poetry, and any attempt to
ignore the rule would insure disastrous failure at the public
examinations.

This point may to some extent be illustrated in English. The first two
lines of the _Canterbury Tales_, which I will take to represent the
_Odes_, run thus in modern speech:—

"When that Aprilis with his showers sweet,
The drought of March hath pierced to the root."

No one nowadays rhymes _sweet_ with _root_. Neither did Chaucer; the two
words, _sote_ and _rote_, were in his days perfect rhymes. But if we
were Chinese, we should now rhyme _sweet_ with _root_, because, so to
speak, Chaucer did so.

When the Tone of a word is known, it is also known in which quarter of
the whole work to look; and when the Rhyme is known, it is also known
in which part of that quarter the key-word, or rhyme, will be found.
Suppose the key-word to be _gale_, it might be necessary to turn over
a good many pages before finding, neatly printed in the margin, the
required word, _tale_. Under _tale_ I should first of all find phrases
of two words, _e.g._ "traveller's tale," "fairy-tale"; and I should have
to look on until I came to groups of three characters, _e.g._ "old
wife's tale," "tells his tale," and so forth. Finally, under "tells his
tale" I should still not find, what all students would like so much, a