[Footnote 50: Muratori carries their antiquity above the
year (1066) of the death of Edward the Confessor, the rex
Anglorum to whom they are addressed. Nor is this date
affected by the opinion, or rather mistake, of Pasquier
(Recherches de la France, l. vii. c. 2) and Ducange,
(Glossar. Latin.) The practice of rhyming, as early as the
viith century, was borrowed from the languages of the North
and East, (Muratori, Antiquitat. tom. iii. dissert. xl. p.
686 - 708.)]