....

aches, that it offendes the head, the necke, the shoulders, the hippes, & disquieteth all the entrailes beyond all measure. And though it may somewhat helpe the digestion of meate, and raw humours, loose the belly, prouoke vrine, driue the stone or grauell from the kidneyes downward, yet it is better forborne for greater euilles, then borne with for some sorie small good. . . . . As for posting . . . [besides other great evils] It infecteth the head, it dulleth the senses, & especially the sight: euen til it make his eyes that posteth, to run with water, not to remember the death of his friendes, but to thinke how sore his saddle shakes him, and the ayer bites him." It is clear that men even then-and much less in Chaucer's time-didn't rise in their saddles, but 'set vpon a trotting iade to iounse them thoroughly,' just sat and got jolted. Fancy 40 miles of that on a cart(or carty) horse in one day!

Compare the Italian proverb Cavallo corrente, sepultura viva: A galloping horse, a living grave.'-Howell's Dict. Italian Morall Proverbs, p. 2.

:

For fairness' sake I must add Mulcaster's objections to 'slow riding,' or walking: "Of Slow riding they write that it wearieth the grines very sore, that it hurteth the buttokes and legges, by hanging downe to long, and that yet it heateth not much that it hindreth getting of children, and breadeth aches and lamenesse," p. 96. Good reasons for not doing too much of it in one day! Walking on his 'legges' was what Mulcaster approved of, and gives us a pleasant bit of Elizabethan England in the fields: "I dare saye that there is none, whether young or olde, whether man or woman, but accounteth it [walking] not onely the most excellent exercise, but almost alone worthy to beare the name of an exercise. When the weather suffereth, how emptie are the townes and streates, how full be the fieldes and medowes, of all kindes of folke which by flocking so abroad, protest themselues to be favourers of that they do, and delite in for their health."

Page 40.-THE ONE-DAY'S JOURNEY TO CANTERBURY.

A suggestion has been made that the Pilgrims might have hired fresh horses at Rochester or Sittingbourne, on which they might have ridden half the journey. To this I answer, that, to suppose the existence, at a provincial town, in the 14th century, of great posting-establishments at which a chance party would find 30 horses to hire—and, shall we say, half-a-dozen other like parties, 30 horses more each before the first lot were brought back-is a stretch of imagination too great for me. This horse-hiring notion, as applied to so large a party as Chaucer's, is a nineteenthcentury notion quite inapplicable to the fourteenth century. Professor Brewer and Mr Gairdner both agree with me in this.

Page 41.-THE 3-DAYS' JOURNEY.

In a note just received from Mr Thorold Rogers (April 2, 1869), he says: "Your Pilgrims no doubt took their ease. Why should they not have done so? Commercial travellers (such as these bursars were) travel much faster than picnic parties do."

Editor in Chief:-F. J. FURNIVALL, 3, St George's Sq., Primrose Hill, N.W.

To do honour to CHAUCER, and to let the lovers and students of him see how far the best unprinted Manuscripts of his works differ from the printed texts, this Society is founded. There are many questions of metre, pronunciation, orthography, and etymology yet to be settled, for which more prints of Manuscripts are wanted, and it is hardly too much to say that every line of Chaucer contains points that need reconsideration. The founder's proposal is to begin with The Canterbury Tales, and give of them (in parallel columns in Royal 4to) six of the best unprinted Manuscripts known. Inasmuch also as the parallel arrangement will necessitate the alteration of the places of certain tales in some of the MSS, a print of each MS will be issued separately, and will follow the order of its original. The first six MSS to be printed are the Ellesmere (by leave of the Earl of Ellesmere); the Hengwrt (by leave of W. W. E. Wynne, Esq.); the Cambridge Univ. Libr., MS Gg. 4. 27; the Corpus, Oxford; the Petworth (by leave of Lord Leconfield); and the Lansdowne 851 (British Museum).

Of Chaucer's Minor Poems,-the MSS of which are generally later than the best MSS of the Canterbury Tales,-all, or nearly all, the MSS will be printed, so as to secure all the existing evidence for the true text.

To secure the fidelity and uniform treatment of the texts, Mr F. J. Furnivall will read all with their MSS.

The Society's publications are issued in two Series, of which the first contains the different texts of Chaucer's works; and the Second, such originals of, and essays on these as can be procured, with other illustrative treatises, and Supplementary Tales.

The Society's issue for 1868, in the First Series, is,

I. The Prologue and Knight's Tale, of the Canterbury Tales, in 6 parallel Texts (from the 6 MSS named below), together with Tables, showing the Groups of the Tales, and their varying order in 38 MSS of the Tales, and in 5 old printed editions, and also Specimens from several MSS of the "Moveable Prologues" of the Canterbury Tales,-The Shipman's Prologue, and Franklin's Prologue,-when moved from their right places, and of the Substitutes for them. (The Six-Text, Part I.)

II. The Prologue and Knight's Tale from the Ellesmere MS.

(separate issues of the Texts forming Part I of the Six-Text edition.)

The issue for 1869, in the First Series, is,

VIII. The Miller's, Reeve's, and Cook's Tales:

Ellesmere MS.)
Hengwrt
Cambridge,,
Corpus

XII.

Petworth

Lansdowne,,

with an Appendix of "Gamelyn" from six MSS.

(separate issues of the Texts forming the Six-Text, Part II, No. XIV.)

The issue for 1870, in the First Series, is,

XIV. The Miller's, Reeve's, and Cook's Tales, with an Appendix of the Spurious Tale of Gamelyn, in 6 parallel Texts. (Six-Text, Part II.)

The issue for 1871, in the First Series, is,

XV. The Man of Law's, Shipman's, and Prioress's Tales, with Chaucer's own Tale of Sir Thopas, in 6 parallel Texts from the MSS above named, and 10 coloured drawings of Tellers of Tales, after the originals in the Ellesmere MS. XVI. The Man of Law's Tale, from the Ellesmere MS.

XVII. XVIII.

Cambridge MS.
Corpus MS.

XIX. The Shipman's, Prioress's, and Man of Law's Tales, from the Petworth MS. XX. The Man of Law's Tale, from the Lansdowne MS.

(each with woodcuts of fourteen drawings of Tellers of Tales in the Ellesmere MS.) XXI. A Parallel-Text edition of Chaucer's Minor Poems, Part I:- The Dethe of Blaunche the Duchesse,' from Thynne's ed. of 1532, the Fairfax MS 16, and Tanner MS 346; the Compleynt to Pite,' 'the Parlament of Foules,' and the Compleynt of Mars,' each from six MSS.

XXII. Supplementary Parallel-Texts of Chaucer's Minor Poems, Part I, containing "The Parlament of Foules,' from three MSS.