BOUTS-RIMES, a popular term in the French poetry, signifying certain rhymes, disposed in order, and given to a poet, together with a subject to be filled up with verses ending in the same words, and in the same order. The invention of the bouts-rimes is ascribed to one Ducot, a poet, in the year 1649. In fixing the bouts, it is usual to choose such as seem the remotest, and have the least connection. Some good authors fancy that these rhymes are of all others the easiest; that they assist the invention, and furnish new thoughts. Sarrasin has a poem on the defeat of the bouts-rimes. But the academy of Lanternists at Toulouse contributed towards keeping in countenance the bouts-rimes, by proposing annually a set of fourteen, to be filled up on the glories of the Grand Monarque, and by offering a medal as the reward of the victorious sonneteer.
The following, filled up by Commire, is a specimen of these conceits:
Tout est grand dans le roi, l'aspect seul de son
Buste
Rends nos fiers ennemis plus froids que des
glaçons;
Et Guillaume n'attend que le tenet des
moissons;
Pour se voir recommencer sous un bras si
robuste,
Qu'on ne nous vante plus les miracles d'
Auguste,
Louis de bien regner lui ferait des
leçons;
Honore en vain l'égale aux dieux dans ses
chansons;
Moins que nous héros il eût eût et
juste.