Note 430 — Chapter VI

It is a singular proof of the carelessness with which the history of barbarous nations has been studied, that authors constantly assert rhyme to be a comparatively recent contrivance; and even Pinkerton, writing to Laing in 1799, says, ‘Rhyme was not known in Europe till about the ninth century.’ Pinkerton's Literary Correspondence, vol. ii. p. 92. The truth is, that rhyme was not only known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but was used, long before the date Pinkerton mentions, by the Anglo-Saxons, by the Irish, by the Welsh, and, I believe, by the Brétons. See Mure's Hist. of the Literature of Greece, vol. ii. p. 113; Hallam's Lit. of Europe, vol. i. p. 31; Villemarqué, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne, vol. i. pp. lviii. lix. compared with Souvestre, les Derniers Bretons, p. 143; Turner's Hist. of England, vol. iii. pp. 383, 643, vol. vii. pp. 324, 328, 330. Rhyme is also used by the Fantees (Bowdich, Mission to Ashantee, p. 358); by the Persians (Transac. of Bombay Soc. vol. ii. p. 82); by the Chinese (Transac. of Asiatic Soc. vol. ii. pp. 407, 409, and Davis's Chinese, vol. ii. p. 269); by the Malays (Asiatic Researches, vol. x. pp. 176, 196); by the Javanese (Crawfurd's Hist. of the Indian Archipelago, vol. ii. pp. 19, 20); and by the Siamese (Transac. of Asiatic Soc. vol. iii. p. 299).