450 OBSERVATIONS ON THE LANGUAGE OF CHAUCER. 
corrupted verses, followed by a collation of good contemporary manuscripts, and 
of the forms of earlier and contemporary authors, we should not at last obtain a 
text approximately correct, and perhaps better than most of those in circulation 
at his own day. I have in these notes attempted only to make a beginning, 
by setting down minutely all the principal forms of words found in one copy of 
the Canterbury Tales, equally those which conform to rule and those which do not. 
While passing over as of no consequence irregularities found in imperfect or other- 
wise faulty: verses, I have taken care not to force any verse into conformity with 
supposed rule, by making emendations, however probable. The number of excep- 
tions to such rules as I have thought myself justified in laying down, is sometimes 
considerable. A comparison of another manuscript of the same class and age as 
the Harleian 7334, would test the reality of these exceptions, and I think would 
cause many of them to disappear. I am in hopes soon to be able to employ for 
this purpose an exact copy of the beautiful manuscript formerly belonging to the 
Duke of Bridgewater, and now in the possession of Lord Ellesmere, which, to judge 
from the Prologue, the only portion I have as yet seen, affords a most excellent 
text. I must also call attention to the fact that sufficient care is not taken by 
editors of ancient manuscripts to render correctly the contracted terminations used 
by the scribes. It is unnecessary to point out, that, unless these terminations have 
been faithfully attended to and rightly interpreted in the printed copy of the manu- 
script I have used, many irregularities and errors may arise from that cause alone. 
There are countless cases in which a final n (indicated in manuscripts by a stroke 
over the foregoing vowel) may be presumed to have existed originally, though 
not preserved in this manuscript. 
The purpose of this paper being, as stated at the beginning, to do something 
towards ascertaining the forms of words used by Chaucer (including inflections), the 
notes upon that subject are intended to be complete, to the extent of the informa- 
tion to be derived from the one text employed. Not so with the Miscellaneous 
Notes, subjoined to the others. ! 
A partial examination of Gower (in the new edition, which is much more hand- 
some than accurate) shows that he employs substantially the same forms as Chaucer. 
Nevertheless, there are slight differences. A thorough comparison both of the Con- | 
sense and taste should write as follows? “ At the same time, many of his lines evidently consist (even on this 
theory) of ten syllables only; and such a construction of verse, for ordinary purposes, is become so much more 
agreeable to modern usage and taste, that his poetry had better be so read whenever it can be done, even at the 
cost of thereby somewhat violating the exactness of the ancient pronunciation.” — Craik’s Hist. Eng. Lit., I. 249. 
