4. Sir Haus Sloan's paper mf. besides other imperfections, wants all The Parfon's Tale, but The Legend of Gamelyn is there told by the Coke.

5. He then acknowledges the favour of the right Hon. the Earl of Caernarvon, now Duke of Chandos, in allowing him the perufal of a very fair mf. on vellum, well preferved, containing all the Tales, and ending with the Retractation. It may be proper here once for all to advertise the reader that 'The Plough→ man's Tale is not in any of the mff. which Mr. Urry defcribes, nor in any other that I have feen or been informed of.

6. He borrowed from the Hon. Col. Hen. Worfely a paper mf. imperfect at the beginning and end, containing all the Tales, but in a different order.

7. He faw two mff. in the royal library, one on vellum, No 1541, Lumley, which contains all the Tales with the Retractation. The ftory of Gamelyn is thus introduced (as it is in feveral other mff.) after that of The Unthrifty Prentice;

The Shipman's Tale, by the tranfcriber's mistake, is in this mf. entitled The Marchand's Tale, The Marchaunt's being before written in its proper place.

8. The other mf. in the royal library is on paper, and contains the Tales as in the other, but is much torn in The Manciple's and Parfon's Tales. Befere Gamelyn has it this rubrick, Here endeth The Tale of the Cook, and here followeth another Tale of the famè Cook, a long Legend of yong Gamelyn.

9. He borrowed, by the means of the Rav. Mr. Harbin and Mr. Yarborough, of Mr. Edmond Canbey of Thorn in Yorkshire, another fair mf. well preferved: this book wants The Coke's Tale and Gamelyn, and

alfo The Squire's and The Marchaunt's Tales, and is imperfect in the end.

10. He borrowed of Mr. Norton of Southwick in Hamphire, by the favour of John Chicheley Efq. a mf. which he gueffes to have been written in the time of Richard II. the writing being very like that in the patent of that king to Chaucer for a pitcher of wine daily; but it is most miserably mangled, a great many leaves being cut out in every part of it, fo that there is fcarce one Tale or Prologue entire, and particularly The Parfon's Tale has neither beginning nor end. The Legend of Gamelyn is introduced in this book by the fame verfes which have been before fet down out of the vellum book in the royal library.

II. The Rev. and learned Dr. Jenkins, Master of St. John's College in Cambridge, and Margaret Profeffor in that univerfity, procured from the publick library there a very fine mf. for his perufal, in which are many leaves wanting, which are fupplied by a modern hand (as he thinks) out of the printed books: it hath before the Tales Chaucer's A, B, C, Littera de Scogan, Ballad de bon Confeil, a poem beginning

In them when any hert is light,

And flouris frethly fpred and tpring.

De amico ad amicum refponfio, VEookis of Troilus and Crefeide: then follow the Tales in their order; but Mr. Urry does not take notice of The Tale of Gamelyn nor the Retractation in this book. After the Tales are the following poems; The Legend of good Women, Legenda Cleopatre Regine, The Legend of Pyramis and Thibe, The Legend of Dido Queen of Carthage, The Legend of Hipfiphile and Medea, The Legend of Lucrece of Rome, The Legend of Philomene, The Legend of Phillis, The Legend of Hypermneftre, The Parlement of Foulis in die Sancii Valentini tent, The

Temple of Glafs (but this is Dan Lydgate's Supplicotio Amantis) La Compleyn. There are in this book fi→ gures of fome of the pilgrims on horfeback illumina¬ ted, which Mr. Urry had not feen in any other mi of this Author, and he doubts not but this book origipally had them all. Before it is the picture of Chaucer drawn by Sir Thomas Cccleve on a leaf of his book De Regimine Principis,and Mr. Urry had been informed of another upon the margin of one of the fame books, and there is a third in the Cotton library at the end of Otho, A. xviii.; from which Mr. Urry very justly infers that Occleve, to preferve his mafter Chaucer's memory, caufed his picture to be limned in every book that was prefented by him to his friends, of the number of which feems to be that beautiful copy of it in the Royal Society's library, [N° 38,1 which befides a picture of Occleve prefenting a book to Henry V. had doubtless Chaucer's picture on a leaf, where that honourable mention is made of him, which has been cut out perhaps to adorn fome mf. of Chaucer, fuch as that here defcribed in the publick library at Cambridge, or that in the Cotton library, which laft contains no more of Chaucer than those poems beginning, Flie fro the prefe, S. and Sometyme the worlde fa fredfaft was and fable, (which is there entitled Balade Ryalle made by Pacticall Chaucyer Chaucer's Song to his empty Purfe, and the first stanza of Troilus's fong in the first book of that poem.

12. Mr. Urry gives an account of a mf. of the late Bishop of Ely which he had collated, containing all the Tales with Gamelyn and the Retractation, thus introduced at the end of The Parfon's Tale, Heretakith the Maker of this book his leave; and after it this rubrick, Here endith The Canterbury Tales compiled by Geffrey Chaucer, of whofe foule Thu Chrift bave mercy. Amin. Volume I.

13. The Hon, Mrs. Thynne, widow of the Hon. Henry Thynne Efq. fon to the late Lord Vifc. Weymouth, was pleafed to lend him a mf. purchased by her, which had belonged to Mr. Long, a Prebendary of the church of Exeter. It is a fair book, but is imperfect at the beginning and end, and wantsThe Coke's Tale and that of Gamelyn; but this defect is fufficiently compenfated by the addition of two new pieces, not extant in any of the other mff. which are there inferted between the Tale of the Chanon's Yeman and Chaucer's Tale of Melibeus, viz. The Adventure of the Pardoner and the Tapfter at the Inn in Canterbury, and The Merchant's Tale in the pilgrims' return from thence, of which more hereafter.

14. The laft mf. mentioned by Mr. Urry is a fair and perfect one, borrowed from Sir Nicholas L'Eftrange. This he fays was the best preserved of any he had feen, and not deficient in any leaves that he had obferved. He fuppofes it had been Sir Henry Spelman's, by the characters of Sr H. S. on the outside of the cover, the book having been newly bound in 1623. He gives no farther account of it, but that it contains the following Tales, which being not fet down as in his defcription of the other mff. it fhould feem he did not live to go through it.

With thefe helps Mr. Urry had made feveral corrections throughout the greatest part of Chaucer's Works, and had prepared a fair copy for the prefs, written partly in his own hand and partly by Mr. Ainsworth, to the end of The Frankelein's Tale. He alfo printed propotals for fubfcriptions fome time before his death, which happened in March 1714.

In the proposals it was published that three newTales of this Author, never yet printed, were recovered, and would be added to this edition, by which were certainly meant The Coke's Tale of Gamclyn, The Mer

chant's Second Tale, or, The History of Beryn, and The Adventure of the Pardoner and Tapfter at the Inn at Canterbury. Though the latter is not properly aTale, but an account of the behaviour of the pilgrims, and particularly of the Pardoner, at their journey's end, and a kind of prologue to a fet of Tales to be told in their return, it was not judged proper to make any alteration in that part of the titlepage, left it should be thought that any thing is omitted in this edition which was intended by Mr. Urry.

**

As to The Tale of Gamelyn, Mr. Urry'sfentiments concerning it may be feen in the note before it. Mr. Selden was of opinion that what is called The Tale of the Unthrifty Prentice was only a kind of prelude, and not the Tale itself, which the Coke intended to tell, and that those two verses which immediately precede it, viz.

And therewithall he lough and made [glad +] chere,
And feid his Tale, as you fhall after here-

are misplaced, and fhould have come after it, as an introduction to The Tale of Gamelyn, and he fays they were fo placed in a very fair mf. which he had, and in fome others.

It were to be wifhed that this Tale had been more carefully collated with the feveral mff. wherein it is found: it may be made much more perfect and correct from the two mff. which I have had an opportunity of collating, viz. the Harleian mf. H. 1, andMr. Cholmondeley's mf. which shall be defcribed in its proper place. I fhall not take notice here of the minute variations, fome of them which affect the fenfe being noted in the gloffary as occafion offered; I fhall only make a few remarks out of them in this place. De Synedriis Ebræorum. Amft. 1679, l. ii. c. 2, § iii. pw So it is in mf. Ch.

360.