2. Often before some few words beginning with b; as he,
his, him, hem, hire, bath, hadde, have, how, her, heer:
Wel cowde he dresse his takel yomanly.' (Prol. 1. 106.)
'Then wolde he wepe he myghtë nought be stent.'

(Knightes Tale, 1. 510.)

That in that grove he wolde him hyde al day.' (Ib. l. 623.) In all other cases h is regarded as a consonant; as 'to fernë halwes' (Prol. 1. 14); 'of smalë houndes' (Ibid. l. 146); 'the fairë hardy quen' (Knightes Tale, 1. 24).

The following metrical analysis of the opening lines of the Prologue will enable the reader to apply the rules already given. The mark represents an unaccented, and an accented syllable.

•Whăn thāt | April | lě with | his schow | rěs swoote

The drought of Marche | hath për | ced to | the roote,
And bathed every veyne | in swich | lĭcour,
Of which | vertue | engen | dred is the flour;
I
Whăn Zephirūs | ček with | his swe| tě breëthe
Enspi | red hath | in eve | ry hōlte | ănd heethe
The ten dre crop | pěs, and the yōn | ge sōnne
Hath in the Ram | his hal | fe cours | i-ronne,
And sma le fōw | les mā | ken mē | lodie,
That slepen al | the night | with open eyhe,
So pri keth hem | nătūre | in here | corages:-
Thanne longen folk to gon | on pilgrimages,
And palmers for | to see | ken straun ge strondes,
To ferně hal wěs, koūthe | în son | dry londes;
And specially, from every schi | res ende
Of Engelond, to Cant | turbury | they wende,
The holy blis | ful mar | tir för | to seeke,

That hem hath hōlp | ĕn whān❘ that they were seēke.'

1. The final e in Aprille, melodie, is sounded; but is silent in Marche, veyne, vertue, nature; because in these cases it is followed by a word commencing with a vowel or with the letter b.

2. The final e in swoote, smale, straunge, ferne, seeke, is sounded, as the sign of the plural number.

3. The final e in roote, breethe, heethe, is sounded, as the sign of the dative case.

4. The final e in sweete, yonge, halfe, is sounded, as the sign of the definite form of the adjective.

5. The final e in sonne, eybe, ende, is sounded, and represents the older A. S. vowel-endings.

6. The final e in ironne is sounded, as the sign of the past participle representing the fuller form ironnen.

7. The final e in wende and were is sounded, and represents the fuller form -en of the past tense plural in wenden and weren.

8. The final e in to seeke is sounded, as the sign of the infinitive mood, representing the fuller form to seeken.

9. The final en is sounded in slepen, maken, longen, as the sign of the present plural indicative.

10. The final en is sounded in to seeken, as the sign of the infinitive mood.

11. The final es in schowres, croppes, fowles, halves, strondes, londes, is sounded, as the inflexion of the plural number.

12. The final es is sounded in schires, as the inflexion of the genitive case.

13. Vertue, licour, nature, and corages, are accented on the last syllable of the root, as in French.

The text of the present selection from the Canterbury Tales is taken from the well-known MS. Harl. 7334, which, however, is by no means free from clerical errors. It has therefore been revised throughout by a careful collation with the Ellesmere, Hengwrt, and Corpus manuscripts printed in Mr. F. J. Furnivall's Six-Text edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, (Part 1 containing only the Prologue and Knightes Talee.) The Lansdowne, Petworth, and Cambridge manuscripts in the Six-Text edition have also been consulted in all cases of difficulty, but they have not proved of much service in correcting the blunders of the Harleian manuscript£.

e This work, which is itself a great tribute to the memory of Chaucer, should be in the hands of every Chaucerian scholar.

f In settling the text of The Nonne Prestes Tale I have been indebted to Mr. Furnivall for his collation of the Ellesmere MS. and for the loan of the Hengwrt and Corpus manuscripts.

As the Old English character þg (th) is not uniformly or constantly employed in the Harleian MS., and does not occur at all, the modern form of the letter has been substituted for it. An initial 3 (A. S. g) is represented in the text by 'y'; in all other cases, whether medial or final, by 'gh': but in order that the reader may know where the older character is used, its modern representatives y and gb have been printed in Italics.

All verbal and grammatical difficulties in the text are explained in the Notes and Glossary, which, it is hoped, will afford young students all the help that they may require in studying the present selection.

KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON,
Sept., 1869.

R. M.

Some scribes have this rule, in general: p=soft sound, as in þat = that; th=hard sound, as in thin; but if þat' begins a line it is written That. Other scribes muddle them up in every manner possible.