Chaucer

The contents of this edition are given by Lounsbury, Studies I: 431-2. Furnivall, in his edition of Thynne's Animadversions, p. xlii, gives some bibliographical details in addition to those of the British Museum Catalogue. See Furnivall for particulars as to the life of Thynne, and the text of the Animadversions for Francis Thynne's account of his father's work.

It was noted already by Tyrwhitt, Appendix to the Preface note e, that the "preface by Brianus Tucca to Berthelet's edition" of Chaucer, praised by Leland in his life of Chaucer, was probably in reality the letter dedicatory prefixed to Thynne's edition. See Bradshaw's discovery of the truth of this surmise, in Furnivall's ed. of the Animadversions, Hindwords p. xxvi; and Lounsbury, Studies I: 266-7.

Tyrwhitt, in the Appendix to his Preface, commented on this edition, so far as its Canterbury Tales text is concerned, and remarked that its material variations from Caxton's second edition are all for the worse.

The text of the Canterbury Tales presents some marked features, important because of the derivation of several successive editions from this by Thynne. The order of the Tales is Knight, Miller, Reeve, Cook (unfinished); Man of Law; Squire, Merchant, with Words of the Franklin assigned to the Merchant; Wife of Bath, Friar, Summoner; Clerk; Franklin; Second Nun, Canon's Yeoman; Doctor, Pardoner; Shipman, Prioress, Rime of Sir Thopas, Melibeus, Monk, Nun's Priest (with epilogue); Manciple; Parson. The Man of Law's endlink (now called the Shipman's prologue), introduces the Squire in its line 17; there are spurious prologues to Doctor and to Shipman; the epilogue of the Nun's Priest does not introduce anyone; and there is no Retractation at the close of the Parson's Tale. Although the epilogue to the Nun's Priest's Tale is combined with the Manciple's prologue as in Caxton's second edition, differences exist in other ways between Thynne's arrangement and Caxton's. The assignment of the Franklin's Words to the Merchant, and the appearance of the spurious prologues, are departures from Caxton, in the direction of what is here termed, p. 247, the Corpus-Mm group of MSS; relations of MSS and prints are not yet worked out.

The House of Fame has a spurious conclusion of twelve lines, written by Caxton, and reprinted by Thynne with changes in the first few lines to adapt it to the longer fragment of the poem which he printed.

Previous to the issue of the above-mentioned facsimile, various texts of the 1532 Chaucer had been printed, viz.: By the Chaucer Society, the texts of the Book of the Duchesse, the House of Fame, the Legend of Good Women, Bukton, Stedfastnesse, the Pardoner's Tale; and the Romaunt of the Rose was announced as No. LXXXII.

The preface is printed in Flügel's Neuenglisches Lesebuch, pp. 304-6.

Skeat also based many of his texts in vol. VII upon the 1532 Thynne, viz.: the Testament of Love, John Gower unto the Worthy and Noble King Henry the Fourth, the Complaint of the Black Knight, the Flower of Courtesy, Ballad in Commendation of our Lady, To my Sovereign Lady (printed in Thynne as a part of the foregoing poem), Wicked Tongue Wicked Tongue (entitled Ballad of Good Counsel), La Belle Dame sans Mercy, Cuckoo and Nightingale, Assembly of Ladies, Mother of Nurture, Go forth King. Twelve of the twenty-nine selections in VII are thus from the Thynne of 1532.

On this edition see Lounsbury, Studies I: 265-70; Skeat, Canon, chaps. IX, X; Maskell in N. and Q. 1883 II: 381; 1884 I: 138.

The careless and inaccurate note of Courthope, Hist. Eng. Poetry I: 252, is censured by Kaluza, Engl. Stud. 22:271 ff.; Kaluza remarks that in Thynne's ed. 181⁄2 poems are genuine and 221⁄2 spurious.

William Thynne, editor of this work, who died 1546, was Clerk of the Kitchen to Henry VIII, favored by that sovereign, and apparently a man of means. He was an enthusiastic student of Chaucer and a collector of many MSS; his nephew, Sir John Thynne, built Longleat House and became the ancestor of the Marquesses of Bath; and as this Sir John was also a collector and one of the "overseers" of his uncle's will, there is a possible connection between the Longleat library and the 1532 Chaucer.

(With woodcuts)

As noted by Quaritch, Catalogue No. 193 p. 20, the various copies of this edition bear the names of different booksellers, Toye, Kele, Petit, Bonham, Reynes, etc. At the Ashburnham sale a Petit copy fetched £18, a Bonham copy £20. This latter is priced by Quaritch loc. cit. at £36; the collations of it given ibid. are: A, 4 leaves, B-Z in sixes, Aa-Yy in sixes, AA-TT in sixes. See Nation 1907 I: 128 for sale of the Van Antwerp copy, "the finest known."

Quaritch, loc. cit., says: "The edition dated 1542 is frequently supposed to be identical with the undated edition, having the same booksellers' names, but it is a quite distinct edition and far

rarer. The contents are the same as in Godfrey's text of 1532, with the addition however of the Plowman's Tale as the last eight leaves of the Canterbury Tales. It was printed here for the first time." [Not correct; Godfrey printed it, separately, previous to 1542; see Bradshaw as cited in Furnivall's ed. of Animadversions, p. 101.] On the contents see Skeat, Canon p. 93 ff. Skeat VII prints the Plowman's Tale and the Moral Balade from this edition.

Thynne, no date. Blackletter. Titlepage:-The workes of Geffray Chaucer newly printed, with dyuers workes whi- | che were neuer in | print before. | As in the table more playnly | dothe appere. | Cum priuilegio. [Colophon:] Thus endeth the workes of Geffray Chaucer. | Imprynted at London by Thomas | Petit dwellyng in Paules churche | yarde at the sygne of the Maydens heed. | Cum priuilegio ad imprimen- | dum solum. | (With two woodcuts only, differing from those of 1542.) Collations of a Petit copy, in Quaritch, Cat. No. 193, are: A, 8 leaves, B-V in sixes, X four leaves, Aa-Zz and Aaa-Ppp in sixes, Qqq five leaves. Priced by Quaritch ibid. at £32.

Dated in the Brit. Mus. Cat. "1545?"; by Quaritch ibid. "about 1547"; by Skeat, Canon p. 161, “about 1550." Lowndes speaks of the several eds. of the booksellers of "1542, 1546, 1555" etc. Hazlitt, Collections and Notes, 1867-76, s. v. Chaucer, insists that the undated ed. preceded that of 1542. Like the ed. of 1542, this bears the names of various booksellers.

Contents the same as in 1542 except that the Plowman's Tale is before the Parson's; see Thynne, Animadversions, ed. Furnivall, pp. 68, 69, for censure of this arrangement. On the ed. see preface to the Urry Chaucer; Maskell in N. and Q. 1883 II : 381-2; Skeat as cited.

(This title in a woodcut border.)

The other impression has as titlepage:-The workes of Geffrey Chau- cer, newly printed, with diuers ad- | dicions, whiche were neuer in printe before: With the siege and destruccion of the worthy citee of Thebes, compiled by Jhon Lidgate, Monke of Berie. | As in the table more plainly dooeth appere. I'

The lower two-thirds of the page is filled by a large woodcut of Chaucer's arms, with the couplet:

Vertue flourisheth in Chaucer still,

Though deathe of hym, hath wrought his will.

Both are printed in double columns; the former impression has in the prologue to the Canterbury Tales 26 woodcuts of the pilgrims, which, according to Quaritch, Catalogue No. 234, are printed from the same blocks as were employed by Pynson for his ed. of the Canterbury Tales. These cuts do not appear in the other impression of this ed. of "Stow." The earlier impression is the more valuable; Quaritch as cited prices them at £48 and £40; in his catalogue No. 243 he terms a copy of the second impression cheap at £21. [The library of Columbia University has a slightly imperfect copy of the earlier, that of Harvard University a copy of the later impression.]

In sixes. Text from A i-U vi, Aa-Zz, Aaa-Uuu vi, two more leaves. Upon the titlepage follows the letter of Thynne to Henry VIII; the table of contents: the four brief poems printed by Thynne at the close of his table of contents; an elaborate woodcut titlepage to the Canterbury Tales, showing in "tree". form the York-Lancaster ancestry of Henry VIII. The Tales are followed by the *Romaunt of the Rose; Troilus and Cressida; the *Testament of Cressida ; the Legend of Good Women "with a balade",=*Mother of Nurture; Boethius; the Dream of Chaucer, Book of the Duchesse; Bukton, (without a heading in the text); the Assembly of Foules; the *Flower of Courtesy; Pity; *La Belle Dame sans Mercy; Of Quene Anelida and false Arcite; the Complaint of Anelida to false Arcite; the *Assembly of Ladies; the Astrolabe; the *Complaint of the Black Knight; *Praise of Women; the House of Fame; the *Testament of Love; the *Lamentation of Mary Magdalen; the *Remedy of Love; the Complaint of Mars and Venus (with the Complaint of Mars and the Complaint of Venus as sub-headings); the *Letter of Cupid; *Ballad in Commendation of our Lady; *John Gower unto the Worthy and Noble King Henry the Fourth; *Saying of Dan John; *Yet of the Same; *Balade de bon Consail; *Cuckoo and Nightingale; *Scogan unto the Lords; Stedfastnesse (without heading); Good Counsaile of Chaucer (=Truth); Balade of the Village without painting (=Fortune); Scogan (headed Lenuoye); *Go forth, King (without heading); Chaucers Words vnto his emptie Purse (the envoy headed separately Chaucer vnto the Kinge); *Wicked Tongue (for heading see Section V here); *Balade in the praise and commendation of Geffrey Chaucer.

[After this:] "Here foloweth certaine woorkes of Geffray Chaucer, whiche hath not here tofore been printed, and are gathered and added to this booke by Iohn Stowe."

A balade made by Chaucer teching what is gentilnes, or whom is worthy to be called gentil.

A Prouerbe against couetise and negligence.

[Gentilesse] [*Proverbs]

A balade which Chaucer made against Women Unconstaunt.

[*Newfanglenesse]

A Balade which Chaucer made in the praise or rather dispraise of women for their doubleness.

The Craft of Lovers.

A Balade.

[*Doublenesse] [*The Craft of Lovers]

[*Of their Nature]

The Ten Commandments of Love. [*The Ten Commandments, etc.] The Nine Ladies Worthy.

[*The Nine Ladies, etc.]

[*Virelay] [*In the Season]

[*O Mercifull]

How Mercurie with Pallas Venus and Minarva appered to Paris of

Troie, he slepyng by a fountain.

A Balade pleasaunt.

An other Balade.

[*How Mercurie, etc.] [*I have a Lady] [*O Mossie Quince]

A balade warnyng men to beware of deceitptfull women. [*Beware] These verses next following were compiled by Geffray Chauser and in the writen copies foloweth at the ende of the complainte of petee. [*Ballad of Pity] A Balade declaring that wemens chastite Doeth moche excel all treasure worldly.

The Court of Love.

(Words to Adam.)

(Surigon's Epitaph on Chaucer.)

(Lydgate's Story of Thebes.)

[*Chastity]

[*The Court of Love]

[Words to Adam]

[*Story of Thebes]

In the above list of the contents the non-Chaucerian pieces are marked with an asterisk, and may be found discussed in Section V here, under the titles as given by Stow except for those pieces added by him, which are here treated under the titles in brackets at the right of Stow's. The other works are discussed in Sections. III, IV. Gentilesse and the Words to Adam, also (doubtfully) the Proverbs, are the only additions made by Stow now admitted to the canon.

Tyrwhitt, in his Account of the Works of Chaucer, says "It would be a waste of time to sift accurately the heap of rubbish which was added by John Stowe to the Edit. of 1561. Though we might perhaps be able to pick out two or three genuine fragments of Chaucer, we should probably find them so soiled and mangled, that he would not thank us for asserting his claim to them." Skeat I 31 ff., Canon 117 ff., gives elaborate analysis and discussion of this edition; see also Dibdin IV: 469; Corser, Collectanea IV : 322; Maskell in N. and Q. 1884 I: 141; Lounsbury, Studies I : 269, 437.

Whether Stow had any real share in this edition, further than the appending of the body of poems above listed, is uncertain. Many of these additions are found in manuscript in the codex Trinity College Cambridge R 3, 19, from which it is highly probable that Stow took them. His attribution of this "heap of rubbish" to Chaucer casts suspicion upon his notes as to authorship made in other cases, see Anglia 20: 404-20.

John Stow, born 1525?, died 1605, was a London tailor. From 1560 on he devoted himself "to the search of our famous antiquities", and was an ardent book collector and copyist. His first publication was the Chaucer just described, and he gave to Speght,

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Chaucer: A Bibliographical Manual