REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 97 



The second main part of each article is to be devoted to Chaucer' s 

 use of the word. 



(a) Here the quotations are to be arranged chronologically (as 

 far as possible) , beginning with the earlier works and ending with 

 the later ones. 



((^) The whole material of the quotations to be arranged histor- 

 ically, and not primarily critically. Words, c. g., of Latin origin, 

 like "honour," "religioun," "honeste," are to be arranged so that 

 7iot the original, classical vaesimn^ of the I^atin word is to lead, but 

 that meaning which the word had in contemporary French (from 

 which Chaucer took it). In other cases this may be different. 



{c) Special attention in quoting is to be given to the construction 

 of the words, phrases, etc. As an example, the author will quote 

 " suffyse to thy thyng," " sufEse to thi god though it be small," 

 and " suffise the thyn owne " — the first construction to be found in 

 Gower and Occleve, but a Latinism, and a I^ate Latinism at that. 



The proper names will be in the main alphabet, but the author is 

 undecided about the admission of the MS. "headings" and MS. 

 " colophons " of the poems, etc. He is inclined either to give them 

 in smaller type or in a special alphabet at the end of the book. The 

 Latin and French quotations, the marginal glosses of some MSS. of 

 the Canterbury Tales, etc., are to be given in an appendix. 



In order to achieve all this, the collections should contain : 



First, complete references to all the words of Chaucer's works, 

 their various forms and all the accessible variants. The ' ' spurious ' ' 

 works, as far as there are still dissenting views among the scholars 

 as to their authenticity — as far as there is still a shadow of doubt 

 as to the possibility of their being Chaucer's — are to be treated as 

 carefully as the " genuine " works; but typographically these quo- 

 tations are to be differentiated, making a comparison with the 

 genuine words easy typographically for the eye, and instructive. 



Secondly, these collections should contain a sufficient collateral 

 apparatus of quotations from Chaucer's contemporaries and imme- 

 diate predecessors, in Middle English and Old French ; in some cases 

 of Late Latin authors. 



Herbert Putnam, Washington, D. C. Grant No. 107. for pre- 

 paring and p2cblishi7ig a handbook of learned societies. (First 

 report is in Year Book No. 2, p. xxiv.) $5,000. 



The compilation of the handbook has been under the immediate 

 direction of Mr. J. D. Thompson, in charge of the Science section, 



