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H A R L E I A N MS. 7334

CHAUCER SOI 2ND SERIES

n iHtanpyt 7334-

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euision 0J t!^ totwhrg

mutsmjit 7334

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BY

JOHN S. P. TATLOCK, Pn.D.

JUNIOR PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, AUTHOR OF "THK DEVELOPMENT AND CHRONOLOGY OF CHAUCER'S WORKS."

LONDON:

PUBLISHED FOR. THE CHAUCER SOCIETY BY KEG AN PAUL, TKENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.,

DRTDEN HOUSE, 43 QERRARD STREET, SOHO, W.

AND BY HENRY FROWDE, OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS,

AMEN CORNER, B.C., AND IN NEW YORK. 1909, for the Issue of 1904

PR (4 of

A?

Merits, 41.

RICHARD CLAY & SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BTJNQAT.

DEDICATION.

E '1 buon Maestro : Prima che pih entre,

Sappi che se' nel secondo girone,

Mi cominci6 a dire, e sarai, mentre Che tu verrai nell' orribil sabbione.

FOR Chaucer, more than for most poets, there are questions to be answered and work to be done which take the student into a desert place where no water is ; a region of arbitrary and meaning less detail.

Lo spazzo era un* arena arida e spessa.

He is fain to become a serf bound to the soil, which is the litera scripta. On every page he must bow his neck to the 3> an(i iQ every line the J?'s spring up and choke him. He must be faithful to the soil, sterile though it seems, for only thence cometh his good increase. Yet it requires all his attachment to his poet, and all his interest in his problem, to keep him faithful. That a student can devote much of a long life to work of this kind without prejudice to his literary or his human nature younger students rejoice to see in the person of Dr. Furnivall. That is why the writer of this paper, which, short though it is, represents very many months of such labour, hopes to be allowed to inscribe it to him.

CONTENTS.

T/'.K

§ 1. INTRODUCTORY 1

§ 2. PASSAGES IN FAVOUR OF REVISION BY CHAUCER . • 5

§ 3. METRICAL EVIDENCE 8

§ 4. OTHER PASSAGES OPPOSED TO REVISION BY CHAUCER . 16

§ 5. GENERAL EVIDENCE AGAINST REVISION BY CHAUCER . 22

§ 6. IN CONCLUSION 30

7334

jmm 0f ify

§ 1. INTRODUCTORY.

VERY little has yet been done toward a thorough and definitive history and interpretation of the Canterbury Tales ; so little that it would probably be news to many students of English poetry that such is needed. The fact is that, until very recently, the number and intricacy of the questions which they raise, the in accessibility of much of the evidence, and the consequent difficulty of reaching trustworthy conclusions, have reduced Chaucer students to silence, or to dropping mere obiter dicta. As long as some of the MSS. have not even been described, most of the others have been printed only in small parts and described very inadequately, and only about an eighth have been wholly printed, and as long as, in spite of the work of Zupitza, Koch and others, we have no quite reliable account of their relations to each other, it is difficult to decide such questions as whether Chaucer ever revised the work (as he did the Troilus and the prologue to the Legend), whether, and (if so) how, he arranged it, whether he published it, and how we are to account for the singular arrangement and contents of many of the MSS. But, while we are waiting, one important point may be clarified, perhaps even settled. From the question whether Chaucer ever revised the work merely in the sense of putting it together more than once with varying arrangements and contents, I wish for the present to disengage the question whether he revised the text in detail. The chief element in this question, and one of the chief puzzles which a textual critic has to face, is the oddities of MS. Harleian 7334,1 in the British Museum. Are they the work of Chaucer himself? This small book is an attempt to answer the question.

1 Notorious enough, among eight MSS. of the Canterbury Tales, or a part of them, in the Harley collection, so that one may drop the handle and call it HI.

HARL. MS. B

2 § 1. INTRODUCTORY.

It is an old one. A generation ago the late Henry Bradshaw, librarian of the University of Cambridge, is said to have been deterred from editing the Tales partly by his inability to account for the peculiarities of this MS.1 More recently, at least three writers have attributed them to Chaucer. Mr. A. W. Pollard 2 says : " The most probable explanation seems to be that many of these readings represent Chaucer's own 'second thoughts,' introduced into a manuscript which passed through his hand after the Tales were already in circulation, and that the Harleian MS. is a careless copy of this manuscript." Dr. Skeat3 quotes this opinion with approval, and adds : " Its chief merit lies in its containing some emendations from an ' inspired ' source " ; he helps himself to its unique readings whenever he wishes, even oftenor than Mr. Pollard does in the Globe edition.4 Professor Lounsbury seems to think HI. a copy of Chaucer's "first draught," and the Ellesmere of a "revised and completed " copy.5 On the other hand, Dr. John Koch, who probably has given more study to the relations among the MSS. of the Canterbury Tales than any other living man, regards most of its unique readings as " decidedly faulty," inferior to those of closely- related MSS., and not due to Chaucer.6 Dr. F. J. Mather7 regards this MS. or an ancestor as proceeding from an unusually

1 Memoir, by G. W. Prothero (London, 1888), p. 225, note.

2 Globe Chaucer, p. xxix ; cf. Athenaeum, no. 3863 (1901), p. 631.

3 Chaucer Canon, p. 25 ; cf. the Oxford Chaucer, IV, viii ; V, 471.

4 They are at times so exceedingly tempting that we can scarcely wonder ; but it is noteworthy that the only writers who believe HI. to be a Chaucerian second edition are editors, who are more exposed than the rest of us to this temptation. In Dr. Skeat's recently-published little book on Tlie Evolution of tlie C. T. (Ch. Soc., 1907), in which his evidence is the contents and arrange ment of seven (not all) of the published MSS., and not their readings, he concludes that HI. represents the last of three or four Chaucerian recensions (see pp. 19, 7, 16, 20). He uses so little of the evidence that I cannot feel he comes anywhere near proving his opinion ; or that he adds very much here to the huge debt which students of Middle English in general and of Chaucer in particular owe him. Miss Hammond's views as to several Chaucerian recen sions seem to be somewhat similar (see her extremely valuable and indeed indispensable Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual, N. Y., 1908, pp. 170, 241, 262 ; but cf. Mod. PhiloL, III, 159-178). Neither uses, so neither invalidates, the evidfiice used here by me.

8 Studies in Chaucer, I, 324. This, with some further complications, ia, the view expressed by Miss E. Moiiey before the London Philological Society in 1901 ; see the Athemeum, no. 3825, p. 216. Professor Child, in his Observations on the Language of Chaucer, based on Wright's reprint of this MS., of course assumed it to have had a normal and unbroken descent from Chaucer's original MS., without especial tampeiing by another (either Wright or anybody). When that distinguished work appeared (1862), there was no idea of the relations among the MSS. of the Canterbury Tales.

6 Pardoner's Tale (1902), p. xlii ; Engl. Stud., xxvii, 4, 5»

7 Chaucer's Prologue, etc., p. 138.

THE EVIDENCE : UNIQUE PECULIARITIES OF HL. 3

independent scribe or "editor." I'rotVs.-oi1 M. If. Liddcll's view is tlie same.1

Against the view that Chaucer ever produced two versions of so fragmentary a poem as the Canterbury Tales, or revised it to any great extent, I believe there is abundance of evidence to be derived from the MSS. in general, and a great weight of a priori probability ; but fully to consider these matters will require a far larger book than the present one. For the time being, in order to limit the subject, we may consider only evidence and probabilities derived from 111. itself. A thorough collection and consideration of these will do more than anything else could towards settling the question.

In order to arrive at some reliable conclusion, we should consider all the cases where the Harleian MS. has a reading found in no other. It may be objected that, whether the revisions are by Chaucer or by another, they may have come in so far back in the MS.-tradition that another MS. than HI. may also contain them. To this I can only say that the passages which have caused all this uncertainty arc, so far as is known, only in HI. ; that the most complete investigation now possible fully establishes its uniqueness ; and that to proceed on any other method would beg questions and introduce quite unmanageable complications. There fore the evidence presented in this paper consists wholly of the unique peculiarities of the Harleian MS. Inasmuch as it is im possible to compare it with all of the more than sixty extant MSS., it is impossible to be absolutely certain of its uniqueness at any point ; but high probability is attainable, and any error has consisted in including readings not unique, not in omitting unique readings. In other words, though a very few passages may have been included which are not evidence, no evidence, unless by oversight, has been omitted, which is the chief matter. I have made a complete line for line collation of HI.2 with the six MSS. printed by the Chaucer Society in 1868 ;3 the results I have fully collated with MS. Cambridge Dd. ; 4 those for the Pardoner's Pro logue and Tale also with the forty-four other MSS. printed in these

1 See the thorough introduction to his excellent volume of selections from the C. T. (N. Y., 1901), pp. cxx f.

2 Published by the Cliaucer Society, dated 1885.

3 MSS. Ellesmere, Hengwrt, Cambridge Gg., Corpus, Petworth and Lansdowne, in what is commonly called the Six-Text edition (" S. T."}.

4 Printed in 1901 ; supplemented in places by Egerton 2726 (formerly Haistwell), in the British Museum.

4 § 1. INTRODUCTORY.

parts by Zupitza,1 and those for the Clerk's Prologue and Tale with the eight MSS. from which these passages have been printed by Dr. Furnivall ; 2 a number of the more crucial passages in various parts of the work I have looked up in thirty-four unpublished MSS. ,3 being all4 that exist in public libraries in England and France; and finally all the passages used as evidence I have collated directly with four unpublished MSS., — the three which Zupitza and Koch 5 have shown reason (confirmed by my observations) to believe to be, at least in some parts, most nearly related to HI., viz., MSS. Additional 35286 and Harleian 7335 in the British Museum and the MS. in the Bibliotheque Rationale in Paris, and also MS. Laud 600 in the Bodleian Library at Oxford.6 So we have for the whole work evidence derived from eleven carefully selected MSS. besides HI., amounting to nearly one-fifth of the total number ; which practically is amply sufficient.

Before I begin, I wish to allay the possible suspicion that the singularity of HI. may have been exaggerated; that, aside from a very few notable readings, its peculiarities may be no more or greater than might be expected in any MS. Thorough examina tion shows that this is simply not true. On the whole, to the textual critic, the most striking and gratifying thing about the MSS. of the Canterbury Tales is their unanimity as to readings. By way of a test for the singularity of HI. I have treated the Ellesmere, the most careful of the MSS.,7 throughout the Prologue, the most important and among the most variable parts of the poem, as I had treated HI. In Ellesmere I found less than one-seventh

1 Specimens (1890-8) ; MS. Hodson (1900). .

2 Specimens, pts. VI, VII (1899-1900).

3 These are: (a) In the British Museum: Addit. 5140, 25718, 35286, Egerton 2726 (formerly Haistwell), Harl. 1239, 1758, 7333, 7335, Royal 17D, 18C, Sloane 1685, 1686. (b) In Oxford : Barlow 20, Bodley 414, 686, Christ -Church, Hatton, Laud 600, 739, New College, Rawlinson 141, 149, 223, Selden, Trinity College 49. (c) In Cambridge: Camb. li, Mm, Trinity College 3.3, 3.15. (d) Lichfield (Cathedral Library), Lincoln (Cathedral Library), Paris (Bibliotheque Nationale), Royal College of Physicians (London), Sion College (ibid.}.

4 Except MSS. Egerton 2863 (formerly Norton) and 2864 (formerly Ingilby), recently acquired by the British Museum, and a very few containing but a single tale or so, mentioned by Miss Hammond and not by Skeat.

6 Specimens, Pt. IV, p. xlvii.

6 This also was included because of certain resemblances to HI. in arrange ment ; as well as in readings, which appeared later. Cf. pp. 5, 9, 19, 20, 27, below.

7 As to arrangement and contents it and its congeners lie under strong suspicion of having been re-edited by another than Chaucer ; as most scholars will admit (cf. p. 33, below).

CHIEF IMPROVEMENTS IN SENSE. 0

as many unique readings as I had found in HI., and not more than one of them (1. 23, were for was) seems worthy to rank with any of those which follow in this paper.

§ 2. PASSAGES IN FAVOUR OF REVISION BY CHAUCER.

Evidences in favour of revision by Chaucer may be divided into changes (chiefly improvements) in the sense or literary style, and changes in the metre. Of the former there are three or four which far outweigh all the other evidence on this side.

[An haburdassher and a Carpenter A webbe a deyer and a Tapicer] (A 363) weren with vss eeke clothed in oo lyuere1

(MS. El.2) And they were clothed alle in o lyueree

(B 4380) Syn march bygan tway mon>es and dayes tuo

Syn March bigan thritty dayes and two From lines 4383-5 it is certain that the month is May, and it is

1 Worthy to rank with this correction is one in the Reeves Prologue, A 3906, " Lo heer is Depford and it is passed prime," for which almost all of the MSS. (including Paris and Had. 7335 ; I have examined 42) read half-wey prime. The change to a less early hour is in the interest of realism, since Kn. T. and Mill. T. have already been recited. But the case is excluded by my rule, since MS. Camb. li, which is supposed to be quite unrelated, has the same reading. Moreover, MSS. Petwovth, Rawlinson 141 and Lichfield read almost prime. Oddly, Skeat ignores these very important variants. A similar case is in Afelibeus, and is one of the two important changes in the prose tales.

(B 2466) & as touchynge )>e proposiciouns whiche J>e phisiciens han

schewed }ou in jus cans . . . that the Phisiciens encreesceden in this caas . . .

The French original (Le Mtnagier de Paris, ed. by Jerome Pichon, I. 206) has " la proposition que les phisicieus adjousterent " ; the Latin source of it (by Albertano da Brescia, Ch. Soc., p. 67) has "verbum dubium, quod protulerunt." Encreesceden is clearly a clumsy translation of adjousterent, though I find no parallel for this use of it in the sense of add. It is certainly what Chaucer wrote, and is the reading of 29 MSS., out of 34 examined which contain the passage, viz., the 6 S. T. MSS., Cm. Dd., Rawl. 141, 149, 223, Ch. Ch., New Coll., Trin. Coll. 49, Hatt, Barl. 20, Arch. Seld., Cm. Mm, Trin. Coll. 3. 15 and 3. 3, Line, (encresen), HI. 1758 and 7333, SI. 1686, Roy. 17 D and 18 C, Egerton 2726 and Add. 5140, 25718 and 35286. The passage is lacking in Sion, Laud 739, Bodl. 686, HI. 1239 and 7335, Paris, Royal Coll. of Phys., SI. 1685. Bodl. 414 changes the word to proposid; Cm. li to hodden ; Lichfield to entreteden ; and Laud 600 (like our HI. ) reads }>e phisiciens han shewid you. This is an interesting confirmation of the connec tion which on the ground of arrangement I have conjectured between these tv.-o MSS. Skeat's reading is that of Lichfield, but he gets it from Stowe's edition (1561), and it certainly seems quite unjustifiable.

- For the common reading, which I shall always put second, I shall ordinarily quote the Elksmere MS. ; when, for some reason, I take it from anotln-r MS., I shall say so. On this passage I have consulted 26 of the 34 MSS. mentioned above (besides the published ones) ; 10 lack the passage, and 16 have the El. reading (or a close variant).

<; § 2. PASSAGES IN FAVOUR OF REVISION BY CHAUCER.

difficult, in spite of all attempts, to reconcile these lines with the ordinary reading in 4380. The change was certainly made by some one of far more thoughtfulness than the average scribe.1

(I 869) . . . but in latyn it is I-cleped Centesimus fructus sectmdum Icronimum contra louinianum.

Of the eleven other MSS. which I have consulted (the &. T. MSB., Cm Dd, HI. 7335, Add. 35286, Paris and Laud 600— the usual list), all which contain the passage omit the last four words. The passage certainly suggests correction by Chaucer; but the citation may have crept in from the margin, since this is one of the oldest of the MSS., or have been added by a well-read scribe. This, and that quoted from Melibeus in a recent foot-note, are the only variations of any consequence in the two prose tales.

The Northern dialect in the speeches of Allan and John in the Reeve's Tale has undergone what looks like revision ; in most cases of variant readings the Northern character of the dialect has been increased in HI.

(A 4028) Or elles he is a fon as clerkes sayn fool

Fon seems to be used nowhere else by Chaucer (except in 4089), nor by Langland or Gower, and seems to be rather Northern.

(A 4085) Leg doun ]>i swerd and I sal myn alswa Lay \vil . . . .

(4089-90) Ilhail aleyn by god ]xm is a fon

This sely clerkes speeden hem anoon Ilhayl by god Aleyn thou is a fonne This sely clerkes lian ful iaste yronne

The change here is apparently to a more accurate pronunciation.2

(A 4178) If ];at I may Jone wenche sal I swyue 3

» . wil . . .

(4254) That makes me >at I ga noujt aright* . . maketh . . go

1 Chaucer usually becomes a trifle muddled and obscure when he tries these indirect, Dantesque methods of telling time. Cf. Prol. A 8, Merch. T. E 2132-3, 2222-4, and Pars. Prol. I 3-11. Cf. also the writer's Development and Chronology of Chaucer's Works (Ch. Soc., 1907), p. 134 ; and p. 21 below. Of the HI. reading Mather says, "surely the work of a scribe" (Chaucer' t Prol., p. 143). The scribe of MS. Camb. Dd gives the marginal gloss "id «st secundo die Maii."

2 Fon ^ rhymes with upon (Towncley Myst., Surtees Soc., p. 80), with Icon (Spenser's Colin Cloufs Come Home Again, 1. 292), with mon (Cursor Mundi, 9186), with he con[nc] (Myrc's Instructions, E. E. T. S., 1. 858). But the o in yronne has the sound of u in the modern full.

3 Cm. Gg. has 32/5 Harl. 7335 has 6 if.

* MS. Paris has makys, go ; similarly Cm. Dd.

THE NORTHERN DIALECT TOUCHED UP. 7

On the other Land, all Northern forms (except leg) in these unique readings of HI. may be found elsewhere in the other MSS. ; furthermore, in other passages Hi. is less Northern than the others.

(A 4027) him falles serue himself )>at has na swayn

Hym boes

(4033) I prey 3011 speed vs in al ]>at }e may

hey then . .

(4078) what wikked way is he gan gan he crye (Hn.) What whilk wey is he gane he gan to crye (4202) Now may I say |>at I am but an ape

On the whole, it would rather seem that, although (what is quite certain) most of the scribes noticed and looked out for the dialect-talk, someone has been touching it up in HI. who was unusually conversant with the matter.

Next I record a considerable number of slight improvements (or what might be deemed such by some) which affect the sense or style ; in this list I Lave meant to include all that can fairly be considered of the least significance.

(A 527-8) But cristes lore and his apostles twelue

he taught and ferst he folwed it himselue

But

. . . but

(A 583) Of [sic] lyue as scarsly as he can desire

Or lyue as scarsly as hym list desiro (A 1017) [Sic] Heraudes knewe hem wel in special The heraudes knewe hem best in special 1

(1104, 1110) And seyde venus if it be Joure wil . . . OF oure lynage haueth sum compassioun

thy ....

haue 2

(1217) But took his leeue and homward he him spedde . . takcth spedde3

(1999) The smyler wi> >e knyf under his cloke The . . . the ... the .

1 In special of course means especially.

2 Line 1105 in all the published MSS. has the pi. ^ow. In prayers, as elsewhere, Chaucer not seldom switches from singular to plural ; e. g. 2237, 2249, 2254, 2312 ; especially perhaps to goddesses, who might be addressed like ladies, but also to God in Frankl. T., F 867, 872, 876, 881. MS. Paris has the pi. in line 1104. Similarly in D 1012 only HI. and Paris (out of 11 MSS. consulted) straighten out the pronouns.

3 The preceding line has the preterite tense. Chaucer often mixes tenses ad libitum ; but some uniformity is certainly an improvement.

8 § 2. PASSAGES IN FAVOUR OF REVISION BY CHAUCER.

(2943) Ne how she swowned whan sche made ]>e fyre

men ... -1 (Hn.)

(3014-15) [Schullen endure by successiouns] And nat eterne be wijxmte lye And nat eterne with outen any lye (3814) As he were wood anon he gan to crye . wood for wo

(B 3859) Fals infortune and poysoun to deuyse

ffalse ffortune and poyson to despise (C 545) Schal ben his sauce maad to his delyt ymaked by delit 3

(D 361) 3it cou>e I make his berd J>ough queynte he be so moot I thee

(900) And after Jms sche spak vnto }>e knight . . I . this thus spak she to ...

(E 2012) he doth al |>at vnto his lady likith

his lady lust and lyketh

(G 92) Or cecile is to say )>e way of blynde the wey to blynde

(676-7) [And make hem wenen atte leste weye] That of a pound we conne make tweye we coude ....

In this second list, though in each case some possible motive for the change is visible, I think all will agree that there is not the slightest necessity for seeing Chaucer's hand at work. Most of the passages might have been neglected without unfairness, for in most of them the improvement (such as it is) may not even have been conscious.

§ 3. METRICAL EVIDENCE.

The variants of the next class are metrical.4 The reviser had a much better ear, and much more independence, than most scribes.

1 It is Emily who, according to the preceding line, had kindled the fire. MSS. Laud 600, Cp., Ft., Ln. have "... whan made was the fire."

2 Paris reads "as he were wood he gan for to crye," which maybe a middle term between the usual and the HI. readings. In other cases too the HI. reading may be a correction of an obviously corrupt, and not of the original, reading; but, clearly, this possibility does not deprive HI. of its unique position.

3 This and all other passages quoted from C 287-968 I have collated (as I stated earlier) with the 44 other MSS. and 3 early editions used by Zupitza, Koch and Furnivall in their Specimens.

4 In this section I ordinarily disregard changes due to the presence or absence of a single letter (as singen for singe], or to the insignificant substitu tion of one grammatical form for another, even if the metre is affected by them, J

THE MOVEMENT OF SOME LINES IMPROVED. 9

First, I record the lines in which the movement is improved without any change of length.

(A 196) he hadde of gold y- wrought a curious pin1

wroght a ful . . . (MS. Hn.)

(516) he was to senful man nought dispitous He was nat to synful man despitous 2

(876) I wolde han told jow fully ]>e manere . vow haue toold 8

(8941) his name was hoote deynous Symekyn Symkyn4

(3957) was noon so hardy walkyng by ]>e weye

that wente by the weye

(4029) Our mancyple as I hope wil be deed Oure Manciple I hope he wil be deed5

(4066) For[«'e]wiJ> wihe }mrgh Jnkke and eek Jmrgh J>enne

And forth witli wehe Jxnir theke & thorw thenne (MS. Cm.)

(B 4045) By nature knew he ech ascensioun

.... he knew (MS. Hn.)

In many or most of these cases the change is probably due to supplying a word which had dropped out.

Next I mention the cases where an overlong line G is reduced to the norm.

(A 514) He was a schepparde and no mercenarie and noght a . .

(520) By good ensample was his busynesse . . this was his .

1 Laud 600 and Addit. 35286 omit both y- and ful, thus perhaps affording another middle term.

2 MS. Laud 600 reads : " He was to sinful men nat to dispetous."

3 Laud 600, Addit. 35286, Paris, and 6 of the published MSS. omit yow in both places.

4 Similarly 1. 3959 ; but cf. p. 15, below. Skeat's deynous seems no more possible than his seijnt in A 120, 697, etc.— The change by HI. in B 3912 is paralleled in Laud 600.

5 MS. Paris reads : ". . . pie I hope wil ..."

8 Chaucer seems for some reason not seldom to admit this irregularity. Lines of fully 12 syllables will be found in G 1427 (in the 8 published MSS.), Compl. of Venus 81, Leg. of G. W. 1126 (in all the MSS.). Mr. Saintsbury (Prosody, I, 174-5) regards Chaucer's Alexandrines as an "easement"; but none of his examples seem well selected. See also Schipper, Grundriss der engl. Metrik (1895), 205 ff. ; Altengl. Melrik (1881), 440 tf. ; ten Brink, C/iauccrs Sprache u. Verskunst (1899), p. 175 ; Liddell, The Prologue, etc. (1901), pp. xc ff. ; Miss Hammond, Bibliogr. Manual, pp. 499-500.

10 § 3. METRICAL EVIDENCE.

(764) I ne saugh >is Jeer so mery a companye *

I saugh nat this yecr

(2420) Jif me >y victorie I aske no more

Yif me the victorie I aske thee namoore (2801) And Jet more oner in his armes twoo

for in hise . . ,

(3008) Of no partye ne cantel of a >ing

or of cantel . . .

(D 1319) And hadde Jmrgh his iurediccioun

And thanne hadde he thurgh his lurisdiccion

In a much larger number of cases, HL stands alone in giving a hypermetrical line; but of course these may be put on the shoulders of another scribe than our reviser. Some of them, how ever, look as genuine as those just given.

Much the largest and most important class of metrical improve ments are where HI. seems to correct lines in which in the eleven other MSS. consulted a syllable is lacking — 9-syllable lines, as they are generally called. I give all the instances which I have found where HI. alone makes the correction, though sometimes it does not seem as if Chaucer could be responsible for the original line. That Chaucer sometimes wrote 9-syllable lines there cannot be a doubt ; nor that the reviser objected to them. The cases are too numerous to give in full ; therefore I merely extract a few samples and then give the whole list by references.2

(A 2822) For in swich caas wommen can haue such sorwe

ffor in swich cas wommen have 3 swich sorwe (F 266) whan }>at J>is gentil kyng J>is Cambynskan Whan ]>at this Tartre kyng Cambynskan 4 (H 99) 0 Jxm bacus I-blessid be >in name 0 Bacus yblessed be thy name

? The line is normal when read "In' saugh " (cf. ten Brink, § 272) ; at any rate it is better than the alternative. I omit A 2060 (paralleled in Haii. 7335), and B 578 (in Paris).

2 In the list have been included even lines where the deficiency stands elsewhere than at the beginning, even after the caesura, and also lines which admitting hiatus would make normal. Does not the whole matter of these deficient lines require a new and thorough examination, which shall take account of various readings, the pronunciation of final syllables, the possibility of hiatus, the position of the deficiency, and the like ? On one class of 9-syllable lines see the rather inconvenient dissertation by Marcus Freudenberger, Ubcr das Fehlen des Auftakts in Chaucers heroischem Verse, Erlangen, 1889 ; also published in the Erlanger Beitrage, vol. I.

3 Have is always monosyllabic in the Troilus (Kittredge, Observations, P. 344). The presence in Hi. of the very un-Chaucerian locution "can have," however, at least offsets the improvement in the metre.

4 Harl. 7335 reads "When that this gentil tartre kyng Cambynskan," which suggests the origin of the reading in Harl. 7334.

NINE-SYLLABLE LINES CORRECTED. 11

A3381 3036 701 K 2.17 10

371 2		8073	1150	1364
485 3	2385 5	3104	1156	F iV.rj
741			3553 7	330
752	2822	3483	C5348	H 99
778		4385	D 882	327
1511 4	2892	B 37	1647
1797	2904	497	17687

1883 2952 621 6 2289 9

It is striking that while 9-syllable lines occur with about uniform frequency throughout the poem, three-quarters of the Harleian corrections are in the first third of it. This is only one of several indications that the zeal of the " reviser " abated as he proceeded.

These cases, which are all that I have found, are certainly strik ing enough to indicate that the reviser deliberately attended to the matter ; even though in some of them the alternative reading seems impossible. The attention which HI. gives to 9-syllable lines is the more striking when one examines the other seven published MSS. in this regard. In Group A, HI. stands by itself in correct ing about 24 9-syllable lines; the others, so far as I find, in correcting only the following :

Ellesmere, 1226 Hengwrt, none

Corpus, 1535 Cambridge Gg, none

Cambridge DJ, 39 111 Petworth, none

Lansdowne, none

The ordinary scribe may have occasionally been capable of noticing a metrical imperfection and remedying it ; but he was incapable of the consuming zeal of our reviser.12

This matter of 9-syllable lines may seem at first sight evidence

A later hand in MS. Paris tries to correct the metre. Cf. Freudenberger ; and ten Brink, Chauccrs Sprat-he, § 262. Attention should be emphatically called to the fact that in the S. T. :uid words in square brackets are inserted by the editor (see Temporary Pi fd'-r, p. 88) ; not wisely, but too well.

Welcome apparently is always dissyllabic within the verse.

Cf. p. 30, below.

Corrected, differently, by MS. Paris ; so also B 1060.

On these two lines, by oversight, MS. Laud 600 was not consulted.

8 Corrected, differently, by MSS. Northumberland and Selden.

9 Cf. p. 19, below. 10 Similarly MS. Sion.

11 In the whole poem, Cm. Dd seems to stand by itself among the published MSS. in correcting the following : A 391 ; B 1404, 4150, 4379 ; D 188, 1392 ; K -H»4, 2240 ; F 251, 542.

12 In scores and scores of cases HI. gives a 9-syllable line where none of the other MSS. do, just as the others do elsewhere ; here of course the responsi bility may rest on a later scribe, and even our zealous reviser could hardly watch with eternal lids apart. We are justified in attaching importance to the one set of cases and not to the other because the addition of words

12 § 3. METRICAL EVIDENCE.

in favour of revision by Chaucer. I believe, however, that it is evidence in the opposite direction. A well-known passage in the House of Fame (1098) shows that in his 8-syllable verse Chaucer was quite conscious of writing verses similarly deficient in length, though it is also clear that he was apologetic about them ; and, whether inadvertently or not, it cannot be doubted that he not seldom wrote them1 in his 10-syllable verse. It is also noteworthy

or syllables is more deliberate, and therefore more significant, than the omission of them. In A 175, however, it looks as if the reviser made a 9-syllable line in remedying another eccentricity of style. Of 9-syllable lines which stand in both HI. and also one or more of the other MSS., but which are of normal length in the rest of them, there are one or two hundred ; which reading is genuine it would sometimes be hard to determine. It may be worth while to give a list, which I believe to be fairly accurate, of the pre sumably genuine 9-syllable lines which HI. does not correct; i.e., which in all eight printed MSS. seems to be thus deficient :

A 76 2725 3535 772 346

170 2770 3600 D 529 390

247 2837 3616 595 549

384 2864 3753 672 1276

697 2928 3792 871 1406

1014 3308 3804 1647 G 341

1182 4286 ?4155 1695 602

1350 4379 C 174 1805 963

B 404 363 2004 1226

1656 1506 ' 495 E 675 1454

1799 2110 502 1682 H 215

1930 2141 532 2291 224

1931 2153 ?599 2410 I 30

2029 3116 608 2424

2030 3130 609 F 165

A few of these lines may be regarded as of normal length if we admit hiatus. The list contains 73 cases ; so it will be seen that among the 9-syllable lines HI. leaves unchanged nearly twice as many as it corrects.

_ l Ten Brink (Chaucers Sprache u. Verskunxt, ed. of 1899, pp. 174-5) would like to regard all 9-syllable lines as corruptions, but does not quite do so They are recognized as genuine reluctantly by Saintsbury (Prosody, I, 170-1)' more cheerfully by Schipper (Grundriss, 205-6 ; Altengl. Metrik, 462-3), and by Kittredge (Observations cm the Language of the Troihis, pp. 405-421) and triumphantly by Skeat (Oxford Chaucer, III, xlv. ff.). Cf. also Miss Ham mond, BibUogr. Manual, pp. 497-9. Ten Brink regards such defective lines in 8-syllable verse as essentially different from those in 10-syllable verse ; it is true that later poetry is more inclined to allow the former (as in Milton's L Allegro and II Penseroso) than the latter, but an essential difference I find

t impossible to grant. Certainly no such rule had been formed in Chaucer's day, as one can see in a moment by observing the practice of his contem-

•oraries. Similarly defective lines sometimes occur in Old French couplet- ; see Modern Lang. Notes, XII, 21. They are common in Anglo- Norman poetry (Schipper, Altengl. Metrik, p. 438) ; especially have I found them now and then in the 8-syllable verse of Wace's Roman de Brut (ed by Le Eoux de Lmc), e.g., 11. 878, 2255, 2746. I have even remarked one or

\g\10^llable Uank Verse' an es^cially ^expected e Book; Guido, 11. 521, 853) :

' Plainly, and need so be put aside ; " " One makes fools look foolisher fifty-fold." They are not very uncommon in the 10-syllable verse of Shelley and Keats.

CHAUCER OFTEN WROTE NINE-SYLLABLE LINES. 13

that 9-syllable lines are particularly frequent in the Squire's Tale, which there is good reason, in its style and its unfinished state, ' to believe one of the last poems which Chaucer wrote.1 If he wrote such lines till almost the end of his poetic career, it would be extraordinary that he should turn decidedly against them in the short time that remained to him. Moreover, that these changes are not due to Chaucer there is even some positive evidence. I find at least four cases in the Prologue and Knight's Tale where the unique reading of HI. is clearly due to the correction by it or an ancestor of a corrupt reading which made a 9-syllable line.2 If, then, somebody after Chaucer's day paid considerable attention to this matter, is it not natural to make him responsible for all such U unique readings ? I shall show later other cases of scribes similarly, though less, critical

The other kinds of metrical peculiarities in HI. are still more unmistakably opposed to revision by Chaucer. In a large number of lines, HI. alone inserts words or syllables with the effect and often with the apparent purpose of reducing the number of unaccented e's (usually final) which it is necessary to pronounce ; it does so even in some cases at the cost of leaving a 9-syllable line. One gains the very strong impression that the reviser did not pronounce as many unaccented e's as the original writer. That at the age of sixty or so Chaucer changed his usage and accordingly altered the poetry which he had just recently been writing, would of course be an absurd suggestion ; that a fifteenth-century reviser, who we have already seen had a strong feeling for the movement of verse, should have made the alterations, is not so extraordinary. This sort of modernization, though unusual, is occasionally to be detected else where, notably in one or two MSS. of the Legend of Good Women-, 3 in one of them has also been pointed out a tendency toward more

1 Mr. Lounsbury (Studies, III, 317-8) thinks the first part of the tale (11. 9-346) Avas thoroughly corrected by Chaucer, and the remainder (347-672) not. If this is true, it does not affect my argument ; in the 338 earlier lines Freudenberger gives eight 9-syllable lines and in the 326 later ones he gives nine.

2 The list is A 688, 795, 2583, 2600 ; sometimes one or two other MSS. supply the corrupt middle term. The possible suggestion that Chaucer might have been correcting a corrupted copy would imply some multiplication of copies during his lifetime, and a very odd forgetfulness on his part of what he had originally written.

3 See J. B. Bilderbeck, Chaucer's Legend of Goyd Women (London, 1902), pp. 34, 55, 56, 58. So far as I can learn, it is not to be found in other MSS. of the C. T. In the Ellesmere MS. in the Prologue I find but two cases (out of 21 variant lines) which could be considered at all (512, kcpeth for kepte • 828, hrdynyes for lordes), and these cannot rank with most of the cases in HI.

14 § 3. METRICAL EVIDENCE.

drastic modernization, in vocabulary. The striking thing in HI. is the frequency of these unique readings in what is one of the oldest, if not quite the oldest, of the MSS. of the Canterbury Tales. I give a few specimens.

(A 241) And euery Ostiller or gay tapstere

And euerich Hostiler and Tappestere

(377) And for to go to vigilies al byfore And goon to vigilies al bifore

(407) He knew wel alle )>e haucnes as >ei were He knew alle the liauenes as they were

(452) That sche was J>anne out of alle charitee That she was was out of alle charitee

(2927) In which >ey whilom woned in rest and pees In whiche they woneden in reste and pees

(3315) And strowted as a fan right large and brood And strouted as a flanne large and brode

(3336) Ther as any gaylard tapster was x Ther any gaylard Tappestere was

(3793) I am )>yn absolon, 0 my derlyng I am thyn Absolon / my deerelyng

In the 4422 lines of Group A, out of 1000 variant lines I find 106 such cases, where the resulting line is readable.

Certain considerations may be thought to reduce the value of this evidence. Not all of these readings can certainly be attributed to our reviser ; and there are of course vast numbers of such e's unchanged. More important yet, I find 80 or 90 lines in Group A where the unique and possible reading of HI. involves the pronunciation of e's silent in the other MSS. But I do not think these can offset the other cases. Not only do the latter cases look much less like our reviser's work than the former ; but the unique insertion of a syllable or word is necessarily more deliberate and significant than the unique omission, which in most cases is cer tainly due to accident and carelessness. I can only restate my ineradicable impression, backed up by respectable evidence, that some one concerned with the Harleian version had a keen ear for verse, and a tendency to pronounce in a somewhat more modern way than the original poet.

Another set of unique readings are in singular contrast with the 1 Cf. A 241, given just above. Here the change makes a 9-syllable line.

HIGH-HANDED TREATMENT OF LANGUAGE. 15

last. In a number of cases it looks as if the reviser's metrical rigorousuoss had led him to take liberties with the English lan guage ; usually in order to avoid a 9-syllable or harshly-moving line, sometimes resulting from corruption, he seems to insert -e's where they are grotesquely out of place.

(A 3941) his name was hoote deynous Symekyn l Symkyn

(3959) But if lie wold be slayn of Symekyn Symkyn

(D 1371) Bet J>an J)is sompnour knew a leccheour

knew a sly lecchour

(D 1392) Artow ]>an a bayely quod he

. . . . a bailly ? Ye quod he 2

(D 1647) After J>e text of crist powel and Ion 3 Crist Poul and lolm

(E 280) Sche wold hauo seyen som what of J>at sight She wolde fayn han seyn som of that sighte

(F 252) Thus seyen >e peple on euery part

Thus seyn the peple / and drawen hem apart

The inserted e's of Symekyn, leccheour, layely, powel, seyen (visum) and seyen 4 (dicunt), are quite unparalleled and illegitimate, but if pronounced obviously improve the verse. This cavalier treatment of the language, inconceivable in the original writer, does not want for parallels in the procedure of editors, from the sixteenth century to the nineteenth.

It may seem as if these last few arguments contradicted each other. It has been shown that HI. corrects many 9-syllable lines, and removes many light -e's ; yet that in removing the -e's in a few cases it makes 9-syllable lines, and in correcting 9-syllable lines in a few cases inserts light -e's entirely unknown to grammar. In presenting these facts I have simply been doing what is neces sary — giving the unique readings of 111. which are striking and

1 Cf. p. 9, above. These diminutive proper names seem never to have had an intermediate vowel in Chaucer's day, though a century or two earlier they had (see N. E. D., s. v. -kin).

2 Cf. the correction made by Cm. Dd.

s Cf. C 523, "As powel saij>" (HI.) ; "Paulus" in El., Hn., and Cm. Dd. ("paul," "poule," "Powle" in the other four published MSS.); Zupitza's ana Furnivall's 40-odd MSS. have one or another of these latter readings. I find no other case of Punt as a dissyllable (see, c. g., N. E. D., s. v.).

4 On these two see G. L. Kittredge, Observations on the Language of Cliaucer's Troilus (Ch. Soc., 1891 ; issued in 1894), pp. 317, 225.

16 § 3. METRICAL EVIDENCE.

may be significant. As to my explanation, that they are due to one and the same man, it seems not unlikely. Our reviser was living (as we know people were in the early 15th century) under what was beginning to be a new linguistic dispensation, and did not quite understand the unaccented -e's of the 14th century. Reading carefully, he would pronounce them, but would often misplace them. In copying the Canterbury Tales, he would not be looking for metrical troubles, but when he observed them would at times not shrink from touching them up ; he would often be inconsistent, and would now be guided by what he thought Chaucer might have written, and now by what he himself would pronounce.1 This in consistency seems to me more natural than perfect consistency would be, and to be a plausible explanation of what are at any rate peculiarities which distinguish HI. from the other MSS. And so much for metrical matters.

§ 4. OTHER PASSAGES OPPOSED TO REVISION BY CHAUCER

First I record certain misunderstandings which are somewhat out of the ordinary.

(A 307) Sownynge in moral manere was his speche Sownynge in moral vertu was his speche

[The open werres wij> woundes al bibled] (2003) kuttud with bloody knyf and scharp inanace Contek with blody knyf and sharpe manace

(B 64) The sorwe of Dido for >e fals Enee The swerd of Dido

(4503) Among his verses how J>er was a Cok 2

Among hise vers how that ther was a Cok

In many cases the reviser seems to have tried to get rid of or modify strange, unusual or extremely idiomatic locutions, and to substitute simpler ones.

1 To this there is a complete parallel in the archaistic language of the 16th century Cmcrt of Love, which favours us with such forms as kepten ben, this mater springen out, she helden, and at the same time almost quite neglects the regular final e (Oxford Chaucer, VII, Ixxvii if.). The farther from what we may call classical Middle English, the more grotesque the errors.

2 Our scribe did not recognize vers as a plural ; it will be seen how he adapts the rest of the line to the added syllable. A similar case in A 74, his hors was good, is paralleled in Cm. Dd.

NEKDLES3 AM) UNWISE CHANGES.

(A 171')- Ne pat a monk whan he is Cloysterles recchelees1

(415) lu- k.-j>te his pacient wondurly wel

[In houres]

. . . . pacieut a ful greet deel

(540) Bathe of his owne swynk and his catel

Bothe of his propre swynk .... (617) A long surcote of blew vppou he haddo

A long surcote of pers

(1075) That Jmrgh a wymlow >ikke and many a barre thikke of many a barre

(3377) he syngej) crowyng as a nightyngale

He syngeth brokkynge2 as a nyghtyngale

(D 1 142) $it wol j>e fuyr as fair and lighte brenne as faire lye a and brenne

(F 1470) Nay nay quod sche god me so rede & wis god helpe me so as wys

(G 95) Is ioyned by a maner of conioynynge mancre conioynynge

I ^ive next some not- dissimilar cases, of officious correction, sometimes commonplace and stupid, missing fine touches.

[The Reule of seynt niaure or of seint Bencyt By cause pat it was old and somdel streyt] (A 175) This ilke monk leet forby hem pace

leet olde thynges pace

(253) For )>ough a widewe hadde but oo schoo hadde noght a sho

[Ther nas baillif ne herde no oper hyne] (604) That pey ne kucwc his sleight and his couyne (!)

That he ne knew his sleyghte and his couyne (Hn.)

(612) And haue a pauk a cote and eck an hood

and yet a coote and hood (Hn.)

1 Profi-sBur O. F. Emerson (Mod. Philol., I, 110-5) has shown this to be a j>erfectly satisfactory reading, and it is retained by Pollard, Mather and Liddell in their texts. To reject it, as Skeat does, seems almost to assume icviaion by Chaucer. Should it not be retained, not only on the principle of the durior lectio, but also because Chaucer would hardly have written line 1 81 of explanation if lie had originally written doyslerles ? Cf. also Professor I}. C. Macauhiy, in .!/<*/. Lang. Review, IV, 14-5.

2 Paris reads s>/ngitlt by nyght.

* This evidently means blaze (A.S. Hy, the noun) ; Paris reads "yit wil the Tyre als fayre lygge and brenne." There are other less striking cases of such substitution in Hi. ; as of Itornts for bevies in B 4588, and towncs for Thropes (I, 12). Two more striking cases, loked for hiked (A 3345) and knakkes for crekes (A 4051), I omit because the HI. reading is found also in HarL 7335. HAUL. MS. C

18 § 4. OTHER PASSAGES OPPOSED TO REVISION BY CHAUCER.

(663) In daxmger he hadde at his owne assise [The 3onge gurles of the Diocise] In daunger hadde he at his owene gise

(782) But 3e be merye smytej> of myn heed

I wol yeue yow myn heed (Hn.)

(799) Schal han a soper at Jour alj>er cost at oure aller cost

(803) I wol my seluen gladly with jou ryde goodly with yow ryde

(1340) I noot which hath ]>e wofullere cheer wofuller mester

(B 46) I can right now non o]>er tale seyn1 no thrifty tale seyn

(C 786) For wel I wot J>at )>is gold is nou3t cures2 (!) ffor wel ye woot )>at al this gold is oures

(D 880) per is non o>er incumbent but he Ther is noon oother Incubus but he

(H 316) But as I sayd. I am nought tixted wel3 textueel

In most of the Haiieian peculiarities mentioned so far there is, in spite of this last set, more or less testimony to the rather unusual good-sense and care of the reviser, granted that he was a meddler. Several other passages, besides some already mentioned, show that he must have been a man of some reading.

(A 993) To do exequies as was }>o )>e gyse To doon obsequies .....

[Ek wel I wot he sayd myn houseboude] (D 31) Schuld lete fader and moder and folwe me4 , and take me

1 Our scribe overlooks the allusion to this word thrifty, and the repetition of it, in line 1165. The scribes of Pt. and Ln. also thought the word odd, and wrote trusty.

2 Cp. and Ln. are also edifying, though less so: "]>anne mighte we seye )>at it were al oures."

3 This may be a sophistication of a corruption in Cp., Pt., Ln., Cm. Dd. and Laud. There are many such cases, where HI. makes the best of a bad business. A curious case of careless officiousness is in A 2062 : " Ther saw} I dyane turned in til a tree " ; then comes the warning that he means not Dyanc, but dane ! The scrupulous HI. is the only one, of the twelve MSS. which I have consulted, to fall into the pit.

4 Obviously a confused reminiscence of St. Mark x. 21. 28-9. or St. Luke xviii. 28-9.

THE REVISER SOMEWHAT SKILFUL. 19

(D 2289) As wel as euclide or ellcs protholome As wel as Euclude or Protholoinee l

(F 95) That Ewen with his olde curtesye [They he come ajein out of fayrye] That Gawayn

I find evidence of the handiwork of some particularly intelligent person in several unique lines which stand in place of genuino lines. These are few, and are pretty certainly not genuine revisions, but have every appearance of having been supplied in place of lost lines. When one considers how bad, in style and verse, such lines are apt to be, the excellence of these is striking.

(A 305) Al )>at he spak it was of heye prudence

And that was seyd in forme and reuerence

(2249) And 3e be venus J>e goddes of loue3

That if yow list I shal wel liaue my louo

[Al in a kirtel of a fyn wachet] (3322) Schapen with goores in J>e newe get

fful faire and thikke been the poyntes set

[The Constable and dame hermegyld his wyf] (B 534) To telle 3011 playne in peynes boj>e were

Were payens and that contree euery where

[Do]) so his sermonys and his obseruaunce] (F 516) vnder subtil colour and aqueyntaunce

[Booth so hise cerymonyes and obeisances] And kepeth in semblant alle hise obseruances

(591-2) And-resoun wold eek J>at he moste go : for his honour Wher-for I wold not ben ayein his honour And resofi wolde eek that he moste go ffor his honour as ol'te it happeth so

Here there is some strange confusion, but in the other cases, which are all that I have found,3 there is evidence of unusual care

1 HI. 1758 and Ln. have Ptholome ; the other eight MSS. consulted are essentially the same as El., all of course misunderstanding the initial jp as a common abbreviation. The correct reading makes a 9-syllable line (unless Chaucer means that the illiterate Sumner gave the word four syllables), which HI. corrects ; so our scribe clearly knew that the word has only three syllables. But the immediate scribe of HI. relapsed into the same inevitable blunder as- most of the MSS. On his shoulders also we must perhaps unload such crude and ignorant blunders as the astronomical ones in F 1280, 1283, and that in A 2062 (already mentioned). The correction of a 9-syllable lino at E 1364 makes a curious blunder.

2 Evidently borrowed from A 2440 ; it is line 2250 which was omitted, and our scribe put the substituted" line on the wrong side of 2249, thus altering the construction.

8 A 1602 is merely a careless echoing of 1592 and A 2656 of 2548 ; C 326 (a reminiscence of B 1642 in the better MSS.) reads the same in Paris, HI. 7335 and Addit. 35286 (out of Laud 600) ; B 1761 reads the same in Laud and Addit. 35286 ; and C 319-320 (a reminiscence of B 4603-4) in Paris, HI. 7335 and Addit. (out of Laud).

HARL. MS. C »

20 § 4. OTHER PASSAGES OPPOSED TO REVISION BY CHAUCER.

and sense. Yet none of them, except possibly A 3322, could be regarded as revisions by Chaucer.1

Similar evidence of care is found in the fact that HI. or its parent was considerably more careful than the seven other printed MSS. to leave a blank where a line has been dropped ; 2 as is indicated by the number of lines added " in a later hand." MS. Camb. Gg is next most careful, but here, we are told, the later hand is often writing on an erasure. The following are striking cases of the sort in HI. In C 717 the rhyme-word is erroneously changed, so that the couplet looks like the fragments of two couplets ; accordingly the MS. leaves a blank line after each of the lines 717 and 718. G 1283-4 are added in a later hand; was the original omission due to the fact that this is one of the very few passages in the whole poem of a line or more for which there are alternative and about equally good readings, so that we have here another case of scribal collation ? The most interesting case of blanks left is in one of the most puzzling passages in the whole poem, Pars. Prol. 3-11.

The sonne . . .

. . . nas nou3t to my sight 4 Degrees [nyne and twenty as in hight] Ten on ]>e Clokke it was as I gesse For enleuen foote or litil more or lesse My schadow was at J>ilk tyme of >e ^ere Of which feet as my lengj>e parted were In [sixe] feet equal of proporcioun Ther-with J>e mones exaltacioun 11 In mena libra alway gan ascende

The bracketed words are by a somewhat later hand, written in a much lighter ink on blanks left by the original scribe. The normal readings (I have examined altogether 42 MSS.) are sub stantially as above except in line II.3 Now the puzzles in the

1 C 82, 291-2f 346 and 926, D 2224, and G 1283-4 are cases where, in one or more of the other published MSS., there is an excellent secondary or alternative reading.

2 Such losses were evident, of course, because they disturb the rhyme- scheme.

3 Ten (or a corruption, such as than) is the reading in 1. 5 of the S. T. MSS., of Camb. Dd., and of MSS. Lichf., Eawl. 149 and 223, New Coll., Trin. Coll. 49, Bodl. 414 (?), Hatton, Addit. 35286, Arch. Seld., Laud 600, Camb. Mm, Trin. Coll. 3. 15 (?) and 3. 3, Line., HI. 1758 and 7333, Roy. Coll. Phys., Roy. 18 C, Egerton 2726. The same list, with the addition of Christ Ch., Addit. 5140, and Camb. li, and the subtraction of Laud 600 and Roy. 18 C, read in 1. 11 I meene Libra, or an equivalent. In 1. 5, Camb. li reads Thre, and Christ Ch. and Addit. 5140 read ffoure ; in 1. 11, Royal 18 C reads In mene libra, and Laud 600 only (which we know is closely allied to HI. 7334) has the HI. reading In mena libra. The whole passage is lacking in Rawl.

DIFFICULTIES SEEN BUT NOT REMEDIED. 21

passage are three : the declining sun, though the immediately pre ceding1 Manciple's Prologue and Tale indicate (H 16) early morning; the mention of ten (1. 5) in spite of the declining sun; and the calling Libra the exaltation of the moon,2 which is incorrect astrology. Xow neither the first nor the second hand in HI. does anything to solve these puzzles (as MSS. Christ Church and Addit. 5140 do) ; nor does the first scribe seem quite to have realized where the trouble lay.3 Lut the main thing is that ho or a predecessor saw some one had blundered, and tried to leave an opening for correction. It may seem as if this careful scribe must have been the actual scribe of our HI. ; but clearly the blank might have been inherited from the parent MS. It does seem, however, that the careful scribe could not be far back.

This is all the evidence of a positive and detailed character which I find against attributing the peculiarities of MS. Harleian 7334 to Chaucer. We have found that, while a few of them are good enough to have come from the poet, there are a far larger number of cases where the readings can hardly be Chaucerian, and yet are greatly unlike ordinary scribal variants. These seem to justify us in postulating a critical scribe whom we may call the reviser ; and once we have him, it is inevitable to attribute to him all the strik ing peculiarities of the MS., good as well as bad. The hypothesis that one and the same MS. contains revisions by Chaucer and also by some one else is too unlikely. The only way in which one could 'entertain such a possibility is to hold that our careful and interested reviser sought far and wide for copies of the work, or parts of it, which contained very minute and inconspicuous

141, Laud 739, Bodl. 686, Barl. 20, HI. 1239 and 7335, Paris, Sloane 1685 and 16*86, Roy. 17 D, Addit. 25718 and Sion College. For the reading ten, this makes 27 MSS. against 3, and for / mene libra also 27 against 3. Therefore Dr. Skeat, in accepting the reading fou re, though that fits the sense, is Hying in the face of the MSS. ; his remarks (V, 444) and Tyrwhitt's (ed. of 1775, vol. iv, p. 186) are decidedly misleading. I do not see how we can very well do otherwise than attribute these strange readings to the careless ness and confusion that Chaucer often gets into, especially in cases like this (cf. p. 6, above).

1 I do not see how it can be questioned that H and I really form an inseparable group, or that E and F do. All the MSS. which I have examined (two-thirds of those extant) make both facts quite plain ; so what Chaucer has joined together let not his Society put asunder. Dividing B, as I believe we should, into two, \vt± shall have, therefore, eight groups instead of nine.

2 Cf. the writer's Devel. and Chronol. of Chaucer's Works (Ch. Soc.), p. 134.

3 There is a little variation among the MSS. in 1. 4, but none, I believe, in L 9 ; I doubt if the leaving of the blanks was due to variety of readings.

22 § 4. OTHER PASSAGES OPPOSED TO REVISION BY CHAUCER.

alterations by the poet, and in his text included these along with his own.1 Clearly, this possibility can never be disproved. But its usefulness is destroyed by the impossibility of knowing which peculiarities we are to attribute to Chaucer ; and its likelihood by certain considerations now to follow.

§ 5. GENERAL EVIDENCE AGAINST EEVISION BY CHAUCER.

We come here to negative and general arguments against the genuineness of the revisions, and these are both abundant and cogent. The present writer believes that all the probability and evidence are against any complete or even extensive arranging, putting together, or publication of the work during Chaucer's lifetime ; and a fortiori against the existence of anything like two versions. Most of the arguments bearing on these subjects cannot be entered into now. I must confine myself here to negative evidence based on the Harleian MS. itself.

In the first place, there are no significant additions or omissions.2 The only additions which I find3 are four curious couplets in Sumn. T., af ter D 2004, 2012, 2037 and 2048 respectively; they are almost faultless in verse, but cannot possibly be by Chaucer, and one hesitates to attribute them to our reviser. Now nothing is more unlikely than that Chaucer should go through a whole text, or any considerable part of it, with his eye on details of verse and style, and never be moved to omit, or especially to add. In this connection it is hardly necessary to refer to his procedure in revising the Troilus and the prologue to the Legend. In a careful scribe such conservatism would be perfectly natural. HI. occupies no peculiar position, but goes with the majority, in regard to the

1 So far as one can see, this appears to be about Professor Skeat's view ; see . p. 2, above.

2 One single case of omission may seem striking. In the so-called SMpm. ProL 1179, the person who profanely insists on telling the next tale is the Sumner (as I have found in four other MSS., Rawl. 223, Royal 17 D, Line., Roy. Coll. Phys.; this will supplement Miss Hammond, Bill. Manual, p. 277), instead of the Shipman (as in modern editions, but in no MS. except Seld.), or of the Squire (as in all the other MSS. examined which contain the passage). Now HI. omits, thereby breaking up a couplet, the last 5 lines of the Sh. ProL, where among other things the speaker declares the tale shall not be learned, for he has but little Latin in his maw ; did the reviser remember, possibly, the Sumner's fondness for Latin (A, 638) ?

8 Or Dr. Furnivall (Harleian 7334, P- vii). These couplets are not in any other published MS., nor in Laud 600, HI. 7335, Paris, or Addit. 35286.

NO SIGNIFICANT ADDITIONS OR OMISSIONS. 23

few passages l which are found in only a few MSS., and which, it might be plausibly maintained, may represent a slight genuine revision of some parts of the work. It is also particularly suggest-

1 These are important enough for some to be given in detail, since I have discovered new authorities for them. A 252 b and c, hitherto known only in Hengwrt, I have also found iu Roy. Coll. of Phys., Laud 739, Christ Ch., Trin. Coll. 3.3, and HI. 1758 (in this last only the first word of each line is inserted, in a hand a century or two later) :

And yaf a certeyn ferine for the gaunt [sic] Koon of his bretheren coom in his haunt (Christ Church) And yaf a certayn ferme • for the graunt

That non of his brethern — com in his haunt (Royal Coll. of Phys.) And 3af a certen ferme for the gaunte [sic] 2? one of hys bretheryn cam there in hys haunto (Laud 739) And yaf a certain ferme for the graunt

Non of his bretheren can [sic] there in his haunt (Trin. Coll. 3.3). Franlcl. T. 1455-6, 1493-8, hitherto known only in Ellesmere, are also (with a Latin gloss) in Addit. 35286, as follows :

The same thing I seye of bilyea

Of Rodogone and ek Valeria

Perauenture an heep of yow y wis

"NYol holder him a lewde man in this

That he wol put his wif in Juptie

Herkeneth the tale er ye upon hir crie

She may haue bettre fortune than yow semeth

And whan that ye han the tale demeth [sic] The third passage is Wife of Bath's ProL, 44 b-g,

Of which e I have piked oute the beste

Booth of hire nether purs / and of hire chesto

Dyu's scoles maken dyu's clerkes

And dyu's praktyke in many sondry werkys-

maketh )>e pfite man sikirly

Of .v. housbondes tcoleying am I (Christ Church).

I have found this passage, sometimes in a poor form (as above, which may show that Chaucer inserted it in a crowded and illegible form), in Seld., New Coll., Ch. Ch., Cm. Dd, Cm. li, Trin. Coll. 3. 15, Roy. 17 D, Egerton 2726 and Sion ; the early part, or all, of W. B. ProL is missing in five MSS. ; in the 28 other MSS. which I have examined this passage is absent. Accord ing to Fumivall (Camb. J/.s'. 7>/, II, vi) ii is " nlso in Mr. Laurence Hodson's MSS." Of the genuineness of all these passages it seems to me there cannot be the smallest doubt ; or that they ought all to be restored to the text. It is a singular consequence of Professor Skeat's method of forming a text that, while he includes the passages in the Frnnkl. T., known to him in a single MS., he half-excludes that in the Prologue, known to him in one almost as good, which he now considers more authoritative, and excludes that in W. B. ProL, known to him in three MSS. I have shown three or four times as much MS. authority (so far as this is an argument) for the two latter passages as for the former ; and on the inclusion in the text of the last passage may refer to my Development and Chronology of Chaucer s Works (Ch. Soc., 1907), p. 201. In much the same category stand a few- of the links, lacking in HI. as in tho majority of the MSS. The Nun's Priest's Epilogue is known only in - MSS.. r'm. I)d, Add. 5140, Dev., Egerton 2726 (formerly Haistwell), Egerton 2864 (formerly Ingilby), Ch. Ch., Roy. 17 D and Hodson 39 (see Skeat, IV, 289 ; Znpitza, Specimens, I, v ; Furnivall, 2nd Supplement to

, p. 75; Ch. Soc. 's edition of HI. 7334, p. 694 ; Miss Hammond, Mod. PhiloL, III, 174, and Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual, pp. 170,

24 § 5. GENERAL EVIDENCE AGAINST REVISION BY CHAUCER.

ive that the tales of the Cook and Squire l are present in their fragmentary form. Would Chaucer in revising have done nothing to them ? 2 Moreover, HI. does nothing toward supplying in the Prologue descriptions of the Second Nun and the Nun's Priests. This deficiency and the inconsistency between the "wel nyne and twenty" and the actual number of the pilgrims (31 including Chaucer) point to a change of plan at some time during the com position of the poem. A thorough revision would have been just the time to remedy them. Again, no attempt is made in HI. to supply any of the links which are lacking betAveen the several groups. Further, the presence in HI., as well as the others, of the so-called Eetractations 3 at the end of the Parson's Tale (I, 1081- 92) seems to me a strong indication that the poem underwent no thorough revision at Chaucer's hand. The poet asks Heaven's mercy for having written "]>e Tales of Caunturbury alle J>ilke ])at sounen in to synne." Other worldly or free-spoken poets besides Chaucer have been attacked toward the end of their lives by an acute inflammation of the conscience. It is not an extreme example of human inconsistency to have appended this declaration of repent ance to the very manuscripts which contained the " merry tales "

247, 283, who errs here, as at other times in her statistics). It is surely genuine, but might easily be lost because it hooks on to nothing at the end. Another such case is the so-called Host-stanza, which, doubtless, was Chaucer's original end-link for the Clerk's Tale, meant to be replaced by the present Merchant's Prologue ; it is printed by Skeat in a note (IV, 424) ; his remark as to its position is misleading, since it practically always occurs, if at all, just after the Clerk's Envoy (he appears to have been misled by Furnivall, 8. T., 477 ; see also the edition of Cm. Dd, p. 274, for the correct position). Of the 42 AISS. mentioned earlier (see pp. 3, 4, above), it is in 17, El. , Hn Cm. Cm. Dd, Seld., Barlow 20, Bodl. 686, New C., Ch. Ch., T. C. 3. 15 (between Pard. and Frankl.), Line., HI. 1758, 7333, R. Coll. Phys., Roy. 18 C, Add. 5140, Egert. 2726 ; and is not in the other 25. It is also in MSS. Naples and Hodson 39, according to Furnivall (Specimens, VI, 80, and Second Supplement, p. 74), and in Egerton 2864 (Ingilby), according to Miss Hammond (BiUiogr., 303), who has most kindly written me that it is not in Laud 739. May I state, for the possible convenience of students, that this present note contains, to the best of my belief, the fullest and most accurate statement to be found anywhere in print as to the occurrence of the six passages mentioned in it ?

1 The former lacks the last eight lines, which makes a better stopping- place ; the latter part of Sq. T. has been cut out, but was originally there as is proved by the number of pages lost.

HI. also retains the half-dozen genuine words ("And if thou take a

wyf " ) at E 1305 which gave rise to no less than nine probably spurious

versions of the rest of the couplet in 26 MSS. See S. T. in loco, and Introd pp. 70 ff. ; Skeat, V, 354-5 ; and the writer's Development and Chronology p. 209. Ten of our 42 scribes wisely omitted the couplet; HI. gives a particularly bad version, the same as that in Bodl. 686, Paris, and HI. 7335

That they are genuine it seems difficult to doubt. The matter is closely connected with the question when and how the Tales were published.

DEFICIENCIES AND ERRORS NOT CORRECTED. JD

repented of, so that they were all given to the world together, as I believe, after the poet's death. But to have added it to the original version long enough before his death to have allowed time for a revised version to come into existence, yet to have left it in that as well, would seem inexpressibly weak-minded and futile.

Though I have called attention earlier to a very few blunders which HI. corrects, the inconsistency mentioned above as to the number of the pilgrims is only one of a much larger number1 which it ignores ; including such glaring ones as the " unworthy sone of Eve" in the Second Nun's Prologue (G, 62), the attribution of female sex to the swashbuckler Shipman (B, 1202, etc.), and the representing of the rude person in the so-called Shipman's Prologue (B, 1179) who interrupts the Parson, and is about to tell a story, as the Sumner, though he is introduced again later, and though whut actually follows is the Wife of Bath's Prologue. Whatever is the true explanation of the mysteries of Group B, and whether or not we accept this reading as Chaucer's original intention, none of the four other MSS.2 which give it can very well contain a revised edition. Such errors as all these would be less likely to be detected and corrected by even a careful and daring critic than by the original writer.

A somewhat similar but stronger argument is the presence in HI., after the unfinished Cook's Tale, of the non-Chaucerian Tale of Gamelyn. Of the 47 MSS. known to me, or on which I have data, it is present in 19 and absent (or inserted later) in 28.3 The probable and familiar explanation of its occurrence is that Chaucer, purposing to work it over, had it among his papers, and that it got into the Tales after his death;4 and its presence has important bearings on the history of the composition and publication of the work. The point hero is that it is incredible that this spurious poem should be found in a version pf the Tales revised by Chaucer,

1 The evidences which Lounsbury finds (Studies in Chaucer, III, 317-8 ; cf. also F, 401-5) of want of care and revision in the second part of the ,v-/ (///•« 's Tale, as compared with the first, are found in HI. as well as in the other MSS. So are certain small defects in the Knight's Talc (see my Development and Chronology, pp. 69-70). In contrast with Chaucer's indiffer ence to minute accuracy, it is interesting to note that in the entire Divina Commedia Dr. Moore finds at most seven inconsistencies, all trifling (Textual Oritieitm of the Divina Commedia, Cambridge, 1889, pp. xxxvii ff.).

2 Cf. p. 22, above.

3 See S.T., Introd., and Zupitza's Specimens (Ch. Soc., 1890), I, xvi, and Second Supplement (1900). In Egerton 2726 (formerly Haistwell) it is 111*. Tin I in a very late (about 18th century) hand.

4 Cf. Skeat, III, 399.

26 § 5. GENERAL EVIDENCE AGAINST REVISION BY CHAUCER.

as well as in nearly half the MSS. of the earlier version; he certainly would not have left it there, and it is very unlikely to have intruded itself twice.1

The next, and a very important, negative argument is the arrangement of HI. At the outset I must state that I am so far from begging the question of a single authentic arrangement that I do not believe Chaucer ever put the poem together at all. But I do not see how we can doubt that he would have studied out the matter carefully had he lived to finish the work ; that the mention of times and seasons, of places along the road, and of tales already told, indicates that he bore the subject in mind more or less all along; and that if we can devise an arrangement without serious inconsistencies, we are justified in preferring it to a self-contradictory one, and in accepting it as coming near Chaucer's intention, even though the one be the arrangement of no manuscript, and the other that of many. To do otherwise, it seems to me, attributes to the poet a slovenliness, a carelessness, and even a lack of seriousness about his work quite beyond anything else we can attribute to him. If all the arrangements of the MSS. are illogical, it seems as easy to reject all as all but one. Such a logical arrangement as I have mentioned can be devised,2 but it is certainly not that of HI. The arrangement of HI. is unique among the 47 MSS. on which I have data,8 differing from all others in at once keeping Group E-F intact, and putting Group G (Second Nun and Canon's Yeoman)

1 The question will at once suggest itself whether Gamelyn in HI. shows any signs of revision, such as appear in the genuine tales. It does not. HI. offers much the best text, as Skeat indicates (IV, 645, note), especially metrically, but there is nothing to show that this is not the original text. Clearly, our reviser would not bother with what he saw was not Chaucer's work, just as he bothered little with Chaucer's two prose tales. ,

2 And is pretty much that of modern editions, which lacks definitiveness only in that, Group C containing no note of Chaucer's intention, we cannot be sure where he would have put it had he arranged the poem at the stage it had reached when he died. The only inconsistency is that the Squire tells us it is prime (F, 73) when it ought to be much later in the day ; for it is impossible that a day began with "Group F" (see p. 21, above, note), and highly improbable, for various reasons, that one began with E or D. I may refer in this connection to my article in the Publ. of the Mod. Lang. Assoc. of America, xxi, 478-485, on the duration of the Canterbury pilgrimage. But tins inconsistency is pretty much an exception which proves the rule, for this note of time stands within an unfinished and perhaps uncorrected tale, and not in a link, to which we should naturally go to discover the scenario of the work.

3 Derived from S.T., Introd. ; from Zupitza's Specimens, I, xvi, and 2nd Supplement (MS. Hodson) ; and from my own examination of 34 MSS., of which 6 (Bodley 414, Paris, Lincoln, Lichfield, Addit. 35286, and Royal Coll. of Phys.) are not in the St. T. table. On some of the problems connected

THE ARRANGEMENT OF HL. NOT CORRECT. 27

between Group E-F (Clerk to Franklin) and C (Physician and Pardoner).1 This arrangement is much better than that of most of the MSS., which are so preposterously arranged. But it is inferior to that of MSS. of the Ellesmere-type, differing from it in putting Group G thus early instead of just before the Manciple. The main point, however, is that it cannot possibly be correct.2 It differs from the arrangement of the editions, which, however, is not that of a single MS., and may be not what Chaucer intended, in three respects. In dividing Group B, it agrees with all the MSS. except the Selden, and it could not easily be proved wrong ; or in putting Group C just before the second part of B. The conclusive thing is that while in B 3116 the pilgrims are near Kochester, and in G 556 at Boughton-under-Blean, some twenty-two miles farther on, the latter passage comes nearly four thousand lines earlier than the former. The chief confusions in the Canterbury Tales are in regard to arrangement ; HI. gives no help. Of course it is conceiv able that Chaucer might have gone through the poem while the MS. was still in separate fragments ; but may it not be a significant fact that the arrangement of HI. should be both unique, among the 47 MSS. which have been analyzed, and not possibly correct1?

My final argument is that from genealogy. If Hi. all the way through contains revisions made by Chaucer himself which are to be found in no other MS., beyond a doubt it ought to stand com pletely apart from the others in regard to other readings, small errors, omissions, etc. ; in other words, it ought to be on a line by itself in the genealogy, since it must then have had an independent descent from Chaucer's original MS. Occasional contamination might be possible, but not constant parallelism. Now, although it is premature, and perhaps will always be unwise, to lay down the law about the genealogy of the MSS., it is certain that HI. stands in no such solitary state, as anybody who is at all familiar with the MSS. will admit and could easily prove. Though its

with the arrangement of the poem, see an article by George Shipley in Mod. Lang. Notes, X, 260-79, and Miss Hammond's Bibliography, pp. 158-167.

1 Except for certain unique eccentricities, MS. Laud 600 is the nearest in <•»' ntials of arrangement, i. e. it is the only other MS. which has the order F (entire), G, 0 ; its connection with HI. is not borne out by Zupitza's tables, but I have found many common readings which serve as evidence, as I have remarked elsewhere from time to time (of. p. 4, above).

2 The order is Groups A (followed by Gatnclyn), B1 (Man of Law, followed by the so-called ShijnnatCa Proluyue), D, E, F, G, C, B2 (from the Shipm. T. totheJV'. P. T.}, II, 1.

28 § 5. GENERAL EVIDENCE AGAINST REVISION BY CHAUCER.

affiliations among the 8. T. MSS. are not constant, there are any number of cases where HI. has an absurd reading in common with one or more of the others ; and it is abundantly evident from these, as well as from the presence of Gamelyn and other facts, that Hl.'s ancestry diverged from that of others of the S. T. MSS. at a some what advanced point in the MS.-tradition. This is clearly impossible if its peculiarities are due to revision by Chaucer.

The researches and reprints of Zupitza, Koch, Liddell and Furnivall for the Pardoner's Prologue and Tale l will make this argument particularly conclusive. Their results have been pains takingly and unfavourably criticized by one or two scholars in private, but after some investigation of all the evidence it seems to me that much of the results will stand.2 In Liddell's graphic representation 3 of Zupitza's results, HI. appears as follows :

ORIGINAL

The near relationship of HI. to the three MSS. with which it is grouped4 may easily be verified by consulting Zupitza's extracts from these MSS. It is borne out by agreements which I have

1 Specimens (Ch. Soc., 1890-1900).

2 The worst point is that they have not allowed enough for contamination ; e.g., in a large scriptorium a scribe might, for a single copy, be given on different days different MSS. to copy from. HI. cannot be throughout as independent of the left-hand groups as the table would indicate. On the same difficulty in studying the MSS. of the Divina Commedia, see Dr. Moore's Textual Criticism, p. xliii. In his Prolegomena and Prefatory Note the textual critic of Chaucer, as Miss Hammond remarks, will find much to interest, perhaps even to instruct him.

3 See Specimens, IV, xlviii. I supplement from Specimens, V, x. (Koch's Introduction).

4 I have found, as I have stated earlier, suggestive resemblances also between HI. and Laud 600 (see p. 4, above), which Zupitza lands far off somewhere on the lower line. The rights of this matter are one of the unsolved problems.

RELATIONSHIPS OF THE MS. OPPOSED TO GENUINENESS OF REVISIONS. 29

found elsewhere in the work ; in fact, in common with them alone III. has some readings which look not unlike our reviser's work, and which had been included as evidence in this essay until these MSS. had been consulted. Yet the readings which for years have given HI. its anomalous celebrity are found in none of these three. Two facts, therefore, are plain : that the peculiarities of HI. are not primitive, and that it is very far from having had a wholly independent descent from Chaucer's original MS.

But from the Zupitza Specimens we can derive still more striking evidence. As I have said earlier, I have compared all passages quoted from C 287-9G8 not only with the S. T., but with the 45 MSS. given in the Specimens, which makes 52 in all (including HI.), being practically all in existence which contain the Pardoner. Sometimes a Harleian reading (not used, of course, in this article), unique as compared with the £. T.y is paralleled elsewhere, some times, perhaps, by mere coincidence ; in four of these cases out of five the agreement is with one or more of the four MSS. (Laud 600, Paris, Addit. 35286, Harl. 7335) with which has been collated all the material used in this work. But in the other cases the HI. reading proves after comparison to be really unique. In other words, this discovery makes us in a measure independent of the fact that for most of the poem we have been able to compare HI. with but eleven other MSS. ; it shows that, just as for the greater part of Group C, so probably for the rest of the work, almost all of its seeming peculiarities are really unique. This confirms the impression of the uniqueness of HI. derived from comparing it with the four MSS. which seemed most likely to disprove its uniqueness. It being out of the question to collate all of HI. with all the 60-odd MSS., we have compared all of HI. with a carefully selected group of the MSS., and a carefully selected part of HI. with practically all of the MSS. ; and we have found, where we could make the test, that practically always, when HI. could run the gauntlet of the eleven MSS., it could run the gauntlet of all in existence. The results of all this, the proof of the intimate relation ships of HI. and yet of its uniqueness, are highly important, for they can mean just one thing, viz. : — That the revisions appeared, at the earliest, in the third or fourth MS.-generation, and cannot be due to Chaucer. This confirms the view, also supported by the fact that HI. seems to be among the very oldest of the MSS., that the " revisions " were made in the immediate parent of HI. ; and that,

30 § 5. GENERAL EVIDENCE AGAINST REVISION BY CHAUCER.

although it is beautifully written, " the Harleian MS. is a careless copy of this manuscript." I quote Mr. Pollard's words, for he and I are agreed on this point, and differ only as to who the reviser was.1

§ 6. IN CONCLUSION.

After all the readings of various kinds which have been dis cussed, there still remain a few which fall into none of the other categories, and which are peculiarly interesting; those cases, namely, in which we irresistibly feel that HI. has the only right reading (sometimes with the same or a similar reading in a few other MSS.), and that the MSS. which differ, Ellesmere and all, are wrong. These few cases follow :

[Don make an auter and an oratory] (A 1906) And westward in >e mynde and in memory

(Pt.) And on >e westward side in memorie2 (A 2037) As is depeynted in [sic] sterres aboue

(Hn.) As is depeynted in the Sertres 3 aboue (A 2385) whan pat )>ou vsedest )>e gret bewte Whan ]>at thow vsedest the beautee 4

1 One possible objection may be mentioned, since it seems to have struck Mr. Pollard (Globe Chaucer, p. xxix). Might not one of the third or fourth generation of MSS., after the whole work had been given to the world, have come into Chaucer's hands, and been touched up by him ? There is, as I have said earlier, a great weight of probability and evidence, not to be adduced here, against the idea that the work was ever put together and published before Chaucer's death, especially long enough before for him thus to have seen his children's children. And secondly, though this explanation might do for a small proportion of the unique readings of HI. , it would not do for most of them.

2 On this I have collated 34 unpublished MSS. (see p. 4, above), making 42 in all. The passage is lacking in Sion and Rawl. 141 ; Trin. Coll. 49 (similarly Addit. 35286) reads (very well) "and on the gate westeward in memorie" ; Camb. li reads "On the Weste gate in memorie" ; the other 36 have sub stantially the Pt. reading or a corruption. The common reading might be accepted if we could allow a hiatus ; but such a hiatus seems hardly possible. It will be noticed that the first three passages quoted in this paragraph are all from Kn. T. It is barely possible that the fact is due to collation of HI. with a separate MS. of this tale, which there is good reason to believe circulated somewhat before the work was published as a whole.

3 Liddell (The Prologue, etc., N. Y. 1902, p. 169) completely explains this reading; the t was "accidentally dropped in the original copy, and then added above with the caret between the two r's instead of between the s and the e : series." This must have happened very early, for 35 MSS. have something like a dozen variations on this, the most extraordinary being sere trees (Sloane 1686) ! The passage is lacking in Sion and Rawl. 141. ' But Christ Ch., Boclley 414, Addit. 35286, HI. 7335 read sterrys, sterres, sterns, like our HI. It would be strange, with so many MSS. and readings, that some of them should not hit on the original.

4 Of course beautee has but two syllables. As a 9 -syllable line this ia

AT TIMES HL. SEEMS TO HAVE THE ONLY RIGHT READING. 31

The other case is one of arrangement ; a couplet which only in HI. comes in intelligibly in the Friar's Tale (D, 1307-8), in all the other MSS.1 comes in strangely a few lines earlier in the Friar's Prologue (after 1294).

(D 1300-10) [An erchedeken

. . . boldely did execucioua In punyschyng of fornicacioun

Of contractes and of lak of sacraments] And eek of many ano)>er cryme which nedi)> not to reherse at |ns tyme [Of vsur and of Symony also But certea lecchours did he grettest woo] (1293 ff.) [I shal hym tellen which a greet honour It is to be a flaterynge lymytour] And of many another manere cryme Which nedeth nat rehercen for this tyme [And his office I shal hym telle ywis]

None of these passages indicates revision by Chaucer simply because he can hardly have been responsible for the ordinary reading. The first three cases, it will be seen from my notes, are emended by other MSS. also, the second and third (probably by coincidence) in the same way as by HI. "What the original reading was in the first and third passages it is impossible to be sure ; in the second and fourth it is hard to doubt that HI. restores the original conditions. The misplaced couplet comes in rather ill in either place, and sounds rather like a later addition ; since its two positions are only fourteen lines apart (allowing two lines for rubrics), the combined height of which just equals the length of the couplet, it may have been written by Chaucer lengthwise in the margin, and have been inserted at the wrong end by the first copyists. Our rather capable " reviser " was surely clever enough to make the restoration.

This finishes the evidence which it seems worth while to present. I have not seemed, I trust, to underestimate the difficulty

almost too bad (but cf. pp. 10, 11, above). 35 MSS. have substantially the El. reading ; the passage is out in 4 MSS. ; Cm. li reads " When thou usete [sic] the grete beaute"; Adi 35286 reads "what tyme that thou usedest the beaute." — Another passage, also in Kn. T., which might be added is A 1637, "Tho chaungen gan here colour ..." (The S. T. MSS. read "To chaungen . . .", a construction, "gan to chaungen," unusual, if not unknown, in Chaucer's works.) MS. Egerton 2726 (for Cm. Dd) also has a iv.ulin^ better than that in the S. T.

1 /. e. in 37 MSS., including even the allied MSS., Paris, HI. 7335, Laud 600, Add. 35286 ; the passage is lacking in 111. 1239 and 7333, Addit. 25718 and SI. 1685.

32 § 6. IN CONCLUSION.

of this question of revision by Chaucer. The gist of the argument has been that, while there are some few peculiar readings in HI. which it is very tempting to attribute to Chaucer, nevertheless, if it represents a thorough revision by him, his procedure in other respects is quite unaccountable, and there is a much larger number of apparent emendations which it is equally difficult to attribute to him and to an ordinary scribe. Clearly, some one after Chaucer's death undertook to improve the text of the Canterbury Tales. The Harleian MS., one feels sure, represents a non-Chaucerian revision ; is it likely that it represents a Chaucerian one as well ? Therefore one can hardly accept Dr. Skeat's view that HI. contains " some emendations from an « inspired ' source." All its peculiarities may conceivably not have come from the same hand, and some crude blunders may be unloaded on the scribe who wrote this identical copy ; but it is difficult to pick and choose. Since HI. is one of the oldest MS 8. of all,1 and these peculiar readings are not in such evidently allied MSS. as the Paris, we cannot carry them far back. The conclusion seems inevitable that most of its important peculiarities are due to some devoted student of Chaucer, well- educated, intelligent and rather sensitive, but somewhat pedantic and liable to lapses of attention and even good sense. When we consider the popularity which Chaucer doubtless enjoyed at his death, and the fact that pious regard to the ipsissima verba was unknown in the Middle Ages, it is not so surprising that somebody should have been found to do him the doubtful service of " tagging his verses " ; nor, when we consider the state in which the work was left, that sometimes the reviser should have been able to make improvements. In establishing a text, therefore, if these conclu sions are sound, HI. should be used, if at all, only with the greatest suspicion; and it cannot be used to prove complete, or even partial revision, by Chaucer, of the Canterbury Tales?

1 "Perhaps, by a few years, the oldest" : Furnivall, Forewords to the Ch. Soc. edition (p. vi) ; cf. Skeat IV, viii (" one of the oldest").

2 The more Chaucer's text is studied, the more likely such an explanation as the above may appear. In many scribes we find a highly and sometimes intelligently critical attitude towards the text. In Pars. Prol. 5 (cf. p. 20), whether Chaucer wrote ten of the clokke or foure, the other reading was an attempt to reconcile the passage with the time indicated by the preceding lines or by the Mane. Prol. In Reeve's Prol. 3906 (cf. p. 5, above) various MSS. put the' hour later than the correct reading, doubtless in order to help out the time. To pass over many other instances, HI. 7333 affords one or two excellent cases of collation or criticism by a scribe. It may be remembered that MonTfs Tale 3565-3652 (the lives of the two Pedros, of Bernab6 Visconti, and of Ugoliuo) comes in most MSS., no doubt correctly (see my Devel. and

HL. DUE TO A DEVOTED STUDENT OF CHAUCER. 33

ChronoL, 170-2), about the middle of the tale ; but in El. and allied MSS. at the end (cf. also Miss Hammond, Bibliogr., 241-3). Now HI. 7333 puts them in both positions. The shifting of this passage is only one of a number of peculiarities in El. and its congeners which led Bradshaw and Furnivall to call them "edited texts" (Temp. Pref., Ch. Soc., pp. 23-4), the "editor" being another than Chaucer. When, in some late MSS. (see S. T. Introd.), Group E-F was split into four parts, the links were made over to fit the tales to their new neighbours ; elsewhere, too, links are made over, and even supplied. Two MSS. of L. G. W. correct Chaucer's curious blunder in 1. 1966 (Aihencs for Crete; see Lowes, Publ Mod. Lang. Assoc., XX, 808). Professor Bilderbeck (Chaucer's Leg. of G. W., London, 1902 ; pp. 55, 56, 58) shows that in L. G. W. MS. Seld. and others make changes, which even he does not ascribe to Chaucer, in order to secure supposedly better lines ; and one MS. even consciously modernizes diction and grammar, as happens now and then in other mediaeval texts. Miss Hammond (Chicago Univ. Decennial Public., First Series, VII, 23) finds scribal corrections for metre in MS. Cm. Gg. of the Parl. of Fowls ; she declares that an accurate text of P. F. will increase the number of 9-syllable lines, which the scribes therefore must have tended to correct (p. 24). Caxton tells us that his first edition of the G. T. was regarded by one of his customers as so incorrect that he had to print another from better MSS. Of the highly critical attitude of some of the G. T. scribes, the Paris MS. affords diverting examples ; it omits the two prose tales, Atelibeus clearly on purpose, and breaks off very early in Sq. T., Can. Yeom. T., and Monk's T., with very uncomplimentary remarks, such as "Ista fabula est valde absurda" ; " Maior pars istius fabule est pretermissa usque hue quia termini sunt valde absnrdi" (cf. Halfmann's dissertation on this MS., Kiel, 1898). "Already in the fifteenth century," to quote Miss Hammond's words, "scribes could try their hands, and not unsuccessfully, at editing"; cf. also her Chaucer: A Biographical Manually. 109.

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