APPENDIX TO THE PREFACE. (4) AN ACCOUNT OF FORMER EDITIONS OF THE CANTERBURY TALES. THE Art of Printing had been invented and exercised for a considerable time, in most countries of Europe, before the Art of Criticism was called in to superintend and direct its operations. It is therefore much more to the honour of our meritorious countryman William Caxton, that he chose to make the Canterbury Tales one of the earliest productions of his press, than it can be to his discredit, that he printed them very incorrectly. He probably took the first MS. that he coud procure to print from, and it happened unluckily to be one of the worst in all respects that he coud possibly have met with. The very few copies of this Edition, which are now remaining*, have no date, but Mr. Ames supposes it to have been printed in 1475 or 6. It is still more to the honour of Caxton, that when he was informed of the imperfections of his edition, he very readily undertook a second, "for to satisfy the author," (as he says himself,) "whereas tofore by ignorance he had erred in hurting and diffaming his book." His whole account of this matter, in the Preface to this second Edition, is so clear and ingenuous, that I shall insert it below in his own words'. This Edition is also without date, except that the Preface informs us, that it was printed six years after the first. ⚫ The late Mr. West was so obliging as to lend me a complete copy of this Edition, which is now, as I have heard, in the King's Library. There is another complete copy in the Library of Merton College, which is illuminated, and has a ruled line under every printed one, to give it the appearance, I suppose, of a MS. Neither of these books, though seemingly complete, has any Preface or Advertisement. > Pref. to Caxton's 2d Edit. from a copy in the Library of St. John's Coll. Oxford. Ames, p. 55.-Whiche book I have dylygently oversen, and duly examyned to the ende that it be made accordyng unto his owen makyng; for I fynde many of the sayd bookes, whiche wryters have abrydgyd it, and many thynges left out, and in some places have sette certayn versys that he never made ne sette in hys booke; of whyche bookes so incorrecte was one brought to me vi yere passyd, whiche I supposed had ben veray true and correcte, and accordyng to the same I dyde do enprynte a certayn nomber of them, whyche anon were solde to many and dyverse gentyl men, of whom one gentylman cam to me, and sayd that this book was not according in many places unto the book that Gefferey Chaucer had made. To whom I answered, that I had made it accordyng to my copye, and by me was nothyng added ne mynushyd. Thenne he sayd, he knewe a book whyche hys fader had and moche lovyd, that was very trewe, and accordyng unto hys owen first book by hym made; and sayd more, yf I wold enprynte it agayn, he wold gete me the same book for a copye. How be it he wyst well that hys fader wold not gladly departe fro it. To whom I said, in caas that he coude gete me suche a book, trewe and correcte, yet I wold ones endevoyre me to enprynte it agayn, for to satisfy the auctour, where as tofore by ygnoraunce I erryd in hurtyng and dyffamyng his book in dyverce places, in setting in somme thynges that he never sayd ne made, and leving out many thynges that he made, whyche ben requysite to be sette in it. And thus we fyll at accord, and he full gentylly gate of hys fader the said book, and delyvered it to me, by whiche I have corrected my book, as heere after alle alonge by the ayde of almighty God shal folowe, whom I humbly beseche, &c. Ames mentions an Edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, “Collected by William Caxton, and printed by Wynken de Worde at Westmestre, in 1495. Folio." He does not appear to have seen it himself, nor have I ever met with any other authority for its existence; which however I do not mean to dispute. If there was such an Edition, we may be tolerably sure, that it was only a copy of Caxton's. This was certainly the case of both Pynson's Editions. He has prefixed to both the introductory part of Caxton's Prohemye to his 2d Edition, without the least alteration. In what follows, he says, that he purposes to imprint his book [in the first Edition] by a copy of the said Master Caxton, and [in the second] by a copy of William Caxton's imprinting. That the Copy, mentioned in both these passages, by which Pynson purposed to imprint, was really Caxton's second Edition, is evident from the slightest comparison of the three books. Pynson's first Edition has no date, but is supposed (upon good grounds, I think) to have been printed not long after 1491, the year of Caxton's death. His second Edition is dated in 1526, and was the first in which a Collection of some other pieces of Chaucer was added to the Canterbury Tales. d The next Edition, which I have been able to meet with, was printed by Thomas Godfray in 1532. If this be not the very Edition which Leland speaks of as printed by Berthelette, with Mr. Lewis in his Life of Caxton, p. 104, has published a minute account of the contents of this edition from a copy in the Library of Magdalen College, Cambridge, but without deciding whether it is the first or the second edition. It is undoubtedly the second; but the Preface is lost. There is an imperfect copy of this edition in the Museum, and another in the Library of the Royal Society. Both together would not make a complete one. c See the Prohemies to Pynson's 1st and 2d Editt. in the Preface to Urry's Chaucer. There is a complete copy of Pyuson's 1st Edit. in the Library of the Royal Society. d I venture to call this Pynson's 2d Edit. though Ames (from some notes of Bagford) speaks of Editions in 1520 and 522. He does not appear to have seen them himself. Mr. West had a copy of the Edition of 1526, in which the name of the printer and the date of the impression are regularly set down at the end of the Canterbury Tales. After that follow "Troilus and Creseide" and "The Boke of Fame," at the end of which last is a note, copied from Caxton's edition of the same book, with this addition, And here foloweth another of his workes. But in Mr. West's copy nothing followed. The writer of the Preface to Ed. Urr. seems to have had the use of a copy of this Edition in 1526, which contained some other pieces of Chaucer's, and several by other hands. See the Pref. to Ed. Urr. e I think it necessary to state Leland's account of the editions of Chaucer in his own words, from Tanner's Bibl Brit. v. Chaucer. "Non alienum meo erit instituto palam facere, Gulielmum Caxodunum, hominem nec indiligentem nec indoctum, et quem constat primum Londini artem exercuisse typographicam, Chauceri opera, quotquot vel pretio vel precibus comparare potuit, in unum volumen collegisse. Vicit tamen Caxodunicam editionem Bertholetus noster operâ Gulielmi Thynni, qui multo labore, sedulitate, ac curâ usus in perquirendis vetustis exemplaribus, multa primæ adjecit editioni. Sed nec in hac parte caruit Brianus Tucca, mihi familiaritate conjunctissimus, et Anglicæ linguæ eloquentia mirificus, suâ gloriâ, editâ in postremam impressionem præfatione elimatâ, luculenta, eleganti. Sequar igitur codicem paucis abhinc annis impressum, et promissum adponam syllabon." He then gives a Syllabus of the works of Chaucer, contained in that Edition, as follows: "Fabulæ Cantianæ xxiv, quarum duæ solută oratione scriptæ ; sed Petri Aratoris fabula, quæ communi doctorum consensu Chaucero, tanquam vero parenti, attribuitur, în utrâque editione, quia malos sacerdotum mores vehementer increpavit, suppressa est. De arte amandi alias Romaunce of the Rose," &c. Before I make any remarks upon this account, I must observe that it was drawn up by Leland before the year 1540. This appears from his "New Year's gift to Henry VIII. in the xxxvii yeare of his raygne," (1 Jan. 1546.) in which he says expressly, that he had spent the last six years in travelling about the kingdom, "all his other occupations intermitted." [Ed. 1745. p. xxii. prefixed to Leland's Itin. v. i.] so that his book De Viris illustribus, which he speaks of as finished in the same piece, p. xxi. must have been finished before he set out upon his travels. I will observe too, by the way, that the Biographers of Leland seem to have confounded these last six years travels with his former travels, in execution of the Commission granted to him by Henry VIII. to serche the Libraries of Monasteries, Colleges, &c. That Commission was granted in the year 1533, 25 H. VIII. but how many years he spent in the execution of it, there is no authority, that I can find, for determining with precision. In the account above-quoted, Leland is certainly mistaken in saying that Caxton collected the works of Chaucer into one volume. He printed two Editions of the Canterbury Tales by themselves, as has been shewn above. He also the assistance of Mr. William Thynne, (as I rather suspect it is,) we may be assured that it was copied from that. Mr. Thynne's Dedication to Henry VIII. stands at the head of it; and the great number of Chaucer's works, never before published, which appear in it, fully printed Boethius, Troilus and Cressida, and the Boke of Fame; but each in a separate volume; and some smaller pieces of Chaucer, intermixed with several of Lydgate, &c. in another volume, of which the contents may be seen in Middleton's Dissert. p. 263. n. [d]; but it does not appear that he ever attempted to collect these separate publications into one volume. Leland is also inaccurate, at least, in representing the edition by Thynne as coming next after that by Caxton, without taking any notice of the intermediate editions by Pynson, and especially that in 1526, in which an attempt was really made to collect the works of Chaucer into one volume. It may appear presumptuous to go further, and to charge him with inaccuracy in his description of that very edition by Thynne, which he seems to have had before his eyes, but I am much inclined to suspect, (as I have intimated in the text,) that the edition which he speaks of as printed by Berthelette was really printed by Godfray, and that the Preface of Brianus Tucca (Sir Brian Tuke) which he commends so much, was nothing else but the Prefatory address, or Dedication, to the King, which is prefixed to Godfray's and other later editions in the name of Mr. William Thynne. The mistake may not have been so extravagant, as it appears to be at first. It is possible, that Berthelette might be concerned in putting forth the edition of 1532, though it was printed by Godfray; and it is very probable, that the Dedication, (which is in such a style as I think very likely to be commended by Leland,) though standing in the name of Mr. William Thynne, was composed for him by Sir Brian Tuke. Mr. Thynne himself, I apprehend, was rather a lover, than a master, of these studies. In support of this suspicion I observe, 1. that the syllabus, which Leland has given of the contents of Berthelette's edition, agrees exactly enough with the contents of the edition by Godfray, a few small pieces only being omitted by him. 2. The date of Godfray's Edition in 1532 agrees perfectly with what Leland says of the edition in question, (viz. that it was printed a few years before,) and with the probable date of Mr. Thynne's edition, which appears to have been published not earlier than 1530, and certainly not later than 1532. It was not published earlier than 1530, because the French Grammar made by an Englishman, mentioned in the Dedication, must mean, in all probability, L'esclaircisement de la langue Françoise by John Palsgrave, the printing of which was finished by John Hawkins, xviii July, 1530, and the Privilege granted on the 2 September following. It was not later than 1532, because the Dedication appears in Godfray's edition of that year. 3. If Berthelette had printed Mr. Thynne's edition, in 1531 (we will suppose), it is inconceivable that Godfray should set about another edition so immediately as to be able to publish it the very next year. Though the printers of that age had a very imperfect notion, I apprehend, of Copy-right at Common Law, they may be presumed to have had always a certain Common Sense, which would restrain them from undertaking a new impression of a book, while a considerable number of copies of a former impression remained unsold, whether those copies belonged to themselves or to others. Besides, Godfray's edition has no appearance of a hasty, piratical impression. It is upon a fine paper, and the types and presswork are remarkably neat and elegant. 4. I think we have Berthelette's own authority for believing that he did not print Mr. Thynne's edition of Chaucer. In the preface to Gower's Confessio Amantis, which he published in this very year 1532, after having mentioned Troylus and │Creseyde, he goes on thus: "The whiche noble warke and many other of the sayde Chausers, that never were before imprinted, and those that very fewe men knewe and fewer hadde them, be now of late put forthe together in a fayre volume." There can be no doubt that in this passage he refers to Mr. Thynne's edition, and if he had printed it himself, I think he would certainly have claimed the honour of it. At the same time, the favourable manner in which he speaks of it, would lead one to imagine, (as has been suggested above,) that he had some concern in it. Upon the whole therefore I am persuaded, that the edition by Godfray in 1532 is the edition which Leland speaks of as printed by Berthelette I have given above what I conjecture to have been the probable grounds of his mistake. But indeed, when we recollect the hurry in which this work of Leland must have been compiled, and that it was left by him unfinished, we need not seek for any other causes of the inaccuracies with which it abounds. In the latter part of the passage cited above, he speaks of The Ploughman's Tale by the title of Petri Aratoris fabula, confounding it, in the title at least, with Pierce Ploughman's Visions. For I do not suppose that he meant to attribute the Visions to Chaucer; though in fact the one might as well be attributed to him as the other. Notwithstanding the immoderate length of this note, I must not suppress another testimony, which may be produced in favour of the existence of an Edition of Chaucer by Mr. Thynne, distinct from that printed by Godfray. Mr. Speght in his Life of Chaucer has the following passage: "M. William Thynn in his first printed booke of Chaucers works with one columbe on a side, had a Tale called the Pilgrims tale, which was more odious to the Clergie, than the *peach of the Plowman. The tale began thus: In Lincolneshire fast by a fenne: Standeth a religious house who doth it kenne. The argument of which tale, as also the occasion thereof, and the cause why it was left out of Chaucers works, shall hereafter be shewed, if God permit, in M. Fran. Thyns coment upon Chaucer: and the Tale itselfe published if possibly it can be found.” It must be allowed that this description of Mr. Thynne's first edition," with one columne on a side, and a tale called the Pilgrim's tale," does not suit the edition printed by Godfray, which is in two columns and has no Pilgrim's tale entitles it to the commendations, which have always been given to Mr. Thynne's edition on that account. Accordingly, it was several times reprinted as the standard edition of Chaucer's works, without any material alteration, except the insertion of the Plowman's tale in 1542, of which I have spoken in the Discourse, &c. n. 32. As my business here is solely with the Canterbury Tales, I shall take no notice of the several miscellaneous pieces, by Chaucer and others, which were added to them by Mr. Thynne in his Edition, and afterwards by Stowe and Speght in the Editions of 1561, 1597, and But I observe that Mr. Speght does not pretend to have seen this book. He even doubts whether the tale can be found. If therefore I should be able to prove, that the Tale, which he speaks of, coud not possibly be in Mr. Thynne's first edition, I presume no great stress will be laid upon the other part of his evidence, in which he supposes that edition to have been printed with only one columne on a side. It appears very strange, at first sight, that the Plowman's Tale (according to Leland) should have been suppressed in Mr. Thynne's edition, quia malos sacerdotum mores vehementer increpavit, and that he should have inserted this Pilgrim's Tale, which, as Mr. Speght tells us, was still more odious to the Clergie. A few years after, when the Reformation was further advanced, in 1542, the Plowman's Tale is inserted among Chaucer's works and the Pilgrim's Tale is suppressed! But there is no occasion to insist upon these little improbabilities. Though Mr. Speght did not know where to find the Pilgrim's Tale, and the Printer of the Edit. in 1687 assures us, that he had searched for it" in the public libraries of both Universities," and also " in all private libraries that he could have access unto," I have had the good fortune to meet with a copy*. It is entitled, "The Pylgrymse tale," and begins thus: In Lincolneshyr fast by the fenc There can be no doubt, I think, that this is the piece of which Mr. Speght had received some confused intelligence It seems to have been mentioned by Bale among Chaucer's works, in the following manner. "Narrationes diversorum, Lib. i. In comitatu Lincolniensi fuit—” Script. Brit. p. 526. Ed. 1559. But it is impossible that any one who had read it should ascribe it to Chaucer. He is quoted in it twice by name, fol. xxxiii. and fol. xlv. and in the latter place the reference seems to be made to a printed book. The reader shall judge. He sayd he durst not it disclose, But bad me reyd the Romant of the Rose, To the secund page ther he did me send, [Then follow four more lines from Chaucer's R. R. v. 7263—8 Ed. Urr.] It is not usual, at least, to cite MSS. by the leaf and the page. But if this citation was really made from a printed book, the Pilgrim's tale must have been written after Mr. Thynne's edition, for Chaucer's translation of the Romant of the Rose was first printed in that edition. Another passage will fix the date of this composition still more clearly. In fol. xxxix. xl. are the following lines: Perkin werbek and Jak straw And now of late our cobler the dawe. One would not expect to find any mention of Perkin Warbeck in a work attributed to Chaucer; but, passing that over, I think it is plain, that our cobler, in the second line, means the leader of the Lincolnshire rebels in 1536, who, as Hollinshed tells us, p. 941. " called himself Captaine Cobler, but was indeed a monk, named Doctor Mackarell." The Pilgrim's tale therefore was not written till after 1536, and consequently coud not possibly be in Mr. Thynne's first Edition, which, as has been shewn above, was printed at latest in 1532. The copy, of which I speak, is in the black letter, and seems to have once made part of a volume of miscellaneous poems in 8vo. The first leaf is numbered xxxi. and the last xlv. The Pilgrim's tale begins about the middle of fol xxxi. vers. and continues to the end of the fragment, where it breaks off imperfect. The first leaf has a running title -Venus The Court of-and contains the ten last lines of one poem, and another whole poem of twenty lines, before the Pilgrim's tale. This curious fragment was purchased at the Auction of Mr. West's library, in a lot (N° * 1040) of Sundry fragments of old black-letter books, by Mr. Herbert of Gulston's Square, who very obligingly permitted me to examine it. 1602. With respect to the Canterbury Tales, I am under a necessity of observing, that, upon the whole, they received no advantage from the edition of 1532. Its material variations from Caxton's second edition are all, I think, for the worse. It confounds the order of the Squier's' and the Frankelein's tales, which Caxton, in his second Edition, had set right. It gives the Frankelein's Prologue to the Merchant, in addition to his own proper Prologue". It produces for the first time two Prologues, the one to the Doctour's, and the other to the Shipman's tale, which are both evidently spurious'; and it brings back the lines of ribaldry in the Merchant's tale, which Caxton, in his second Edition, had rejected upon the authority of his good MS. However, this Edition of 1532, with all its imperfections, had the luck, as I have said, to be considered as the standard edition, and to be copied, not only by the Booksellers, in their several Editions1 of 1542, 1546, 1555, and 1561, but also by Mr. Speght, (the first Editor in form, after Mr. Thynne, who set his name to his work,) in 1597 and 1602. In the Dedication to Sir Robert Cecil, prefixed to this last edition, he speaks indeed of having "reformed the whole work, both by old written copies and by Ma. William Thynnes praise-worthy labours," but I cannot find that he has departed in any material point from those editions, which I have supposed to be derived from Mr. Thynne's. In the very material points abovementioned, in which those editions vary from Caxton's second, he has followed them. Nor have I observed any such verbal varieties, as would induce one to believe that he had consulted any good MS. They who have read his Preface, will probably not regret, that he did not do more towards correcting the text of Chaucer. In this state the Canterbury Tales remained till the edition undertaken by Mr. Urry, which was published, some years after his death, in 1721. I shall say but little of that edition, as a very fair and full account of it is to be seen in the modest and sensible Preface prefixed to it by Mr. Timothy Thomas", upon whom the charge of publishing Chaucer devolved, or rather f see the Discourse, &c. §. xxiii. and Note on ver. 10293. * See the Discourse, &c. §. xxv. and Note on ver. 10985. See the same Section and Note. i See them in all the Editt. since 1532 See the Note on ver. 10227. The lines themselves are in all the common Editt. There are some other Editions mentioned by Ames, without date, but it is probable that, upon inspection, they would appear to be one or other of the Editions, whose dates are here given. It seems to have been usual to print books in partnership, and for each partner to print his own name to his share of the impression. See Ames, p. 252. A Bible is said to be printed in 1551, by Nicholas Hill-"at the cost and charges of certayne honest menne of the cocupacyon, whose names be upon their bokes." It may be proper just to take notice, that Mr. Speght's Edition was reprinted in 1687, with an Advertisement at the end, in which the Editor pretended to publish from a MS. the conclusion of the Coke's Tale and also of the Squires Tale, which in the printed books are said to be lost or never finished by the author.-These Conclusions may be seen in the Preface to Ed. Urr. Whoever the Editor was, I must do him the justice to say, that they are both really to be found in MS. The first is in MS. B. a. and the other in MS. B. 8. from which Hearne has also printed it, as a choice discovery, in his Letter to Bagford. App. to R. G. p. 601. If I thought the Reader had any relish for such supplements to Chaucer, I coud treat him from MS. B. a. with at least thirty more lines, which have been inserted in different parts of the Cook's Tale, by the same hand that wrote this Conclusion. It seems to have been an early, though very unsuccessful, attempt to supply the deficiencies of that Tale, before any one had thought of tacking Gamelyn to it. I learn this from a MS. note in an interleaved copy of Urry's Chaucer, presented to the British Museum by Mr. William Thomas, a brother, as I apprehend, of Mr. T. Thomas. T. Thomas was of Christ-Church, Oxford, and died in 1751, aged lix. In another note Mr. W. Thomas informs us, that the Life of Chaucer, in that edition, was very uncorrectly drawn up by Mr. Dart, and corrected and enlarged by W. T. (i. e. himself.) The same Mr. W. Thomas has taken a great deal of unnecessary pains in collating that copy of Urry's Edit, with several MSS. The best part of the various |