صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

As a certain degree of information upon all thefe points will be found to be neceffary even for the reading of The Canterbury Tales with intelligence and fatisfaction, the editor hopes he shall be excufed for fuppofing that the majority of his readers will not be displeased with his attempt to shorten at least the labour of their inquiries, by laying before them fuch parts of the refult of his own researches as he judges will be most conducive to that purpofe; he has therefore added to the text, 1. An Effay on the Language and Verfification of Chaucer *; 2. An Introductory Difcourfe to The Canterbury Tales; and, 3. Notes, into which he has thrown an account of the most material various readings, illuftrations of particular paffages, and explanations of the most uncommon words and phrafes, especially fuch as are omitted or ill explained in the Gloffary to Urry's edition.

He had once an intention of adding a gloffary and a life of Chaucer: from the former of thefe undertakings he was deterred by the bulk to which this publication had already fwollen, and by the coníideration that a gloffary adapted to a part only of Chaucer's writings muft neceffarily be a very imperfect work, the utility of which would by no means

In this Effay is contained a thort view of English poetry to the time of Chaucer, the trouble of compiling which the editor might perhaps have faved himself if he had forefeen that Mr. Warton's History of English Poetry would have appeared fo foon. Both the Effay and the Introductory Difcourfe were printed before Mr. Warton's book was published, which is mentioned not fo much to obviate any fufpicion of plagiarism as to apologize for whatever defects there may be in either of thefe treatifes from a want of the lights which that learned and elegant writer has thrown upon all parts of this fubject.

This Gloffary has fince been publithed. See vol. xiv.

be proportionable to the labour employed in compiling it. If this attempt to invite the attention of the publick to their too much neglected bard fhould fo far fucceed as to bring to light any mff. by the help of which, together with thofe in the Bodleian and other libraries, the remainder of the writings of Chaucer might be restored to a tolerable degree of purity, a good gloffary to the whole would be a most useful work, and indeed would answer all the purposes of a dictionary of our ancient language.

With respect to a life of Chaucer he found, after a reasonable wafte of time and pains in fearching for materials, that he could add few facts to those which have already appeared in several lives of that poet; and he was not difpofed either to repeat the comments and inventions by which former biographers have endeavoured to fupply the deficiency of facts, or to fubftitute any of his own for the fame laudable purpose: instead therefore of a formal life of his Author, which upon thefe principles must have been a very meagre narration, he has added to this Preface a fhort Abstract of the Hiftorical Paffages of the Life of Chaucer with remarks, which may ferve to feparate for the future those paffages from others which have nothing to recommend them to credit but the single circumstance of having been often repeated.

He will detain the reader no longer than just to defire his indulgence for the errata which are fpecified in the annexed table: thofe of the printer are diftinguished by Italicks; of the reft the editor must take the fname to himfelf: they are owing partly to his having omitted to infert the true readings in the

* See this vol. page 66—76.

copy prepared for the prefs, and partly to his having imprudently adopted fome less authorized readings, and even conje&ures, inftead of the readings of the beft mff. When the paffages here pointed out are corrected he does not recollect to have deviated from the mff. (except perhaps by adding the final n to å very few words) in any one inftance of which the reader is not advertised in the notes.

An account of former editions of The Canterbary Tales. THE art of printing had been invented and exerci

fed for a confiderable time in most countries of Europe before the art of criticifm was called in to fuperintend and direct its operations; it is therefore much more to the honour of our meritorious countryman, William Caxton, that he chofe to make The Canterbury Tales one of the earliest productions of his prefs, than it can be to his difcredit that he printed them very incorrectly. He probably took the first mf. that he could procure to print from, and it happened unluckily to be one of the worst in all refpects that he could poffibly have met with. The very few copies of this edition which are now remaining (a) have no date, but Mr. Ames fuppofes it to have been printed in 1475 or 1476.

It is ftill more to the honour of Caxton that when he was informed of the imperfections of his edition he very readily undertook a fecond," for to fatisfy "the Auctour," (as he fays himself) "where as to"fore by ygnoraunce he had erryd in hurtyng and dyf"famyng his book." His whole account of this matter, in the Preface to this fecond edition, is fo clear and ingenuous that I fhall infert it below in his own words (6). This edition is also without date, except

(a) The late Mr. Weft 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 mf. Neither of those books, though seemingly complete, has any preface or advertisement.

(b) Pref. to Caxton's 2d edit. from a copy in the library of

that the Preface informs us that it was printed fix years after the first.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

St. John's Col. Oxford, p. Ames, 55.-"Whiche book I have "dylygently overfen, and duly examyned to the ende that it 86 be made accordyng unto his owen makyng; for I fynde many of the fayd bookes, whiche wryters have abrydgyd it, and many thynges left out, and in fome places have fette certayn "verfys that he never made ne fette in hys booke; of whiche "bookes fo incorrecte was one broughte to me vi. yere paffyd "whiche I fuppofed had ben veray true and correcte, and accordyng to the fame I dyde do enprynte a certayn nomber of them, whyche anon were folde to many and dyverfe gen"tlymen, of whom one gentylman cam to me, and fayd that "this book was not accordyng 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 mynusthyd. Theune he fayd, he knewe "a book whyche hys fader had and mocke lovyd, that was very trewe, and accordyng unto hys owen first book by hym "made; and fayd more, yf I wold enprynte it agayn he wold gete me the fame Book for a copye, how be it he wyft well that hys fader wold not gladly departe fro it. To whom I fayd, in caas that he coude gete me fuche a book, trewe and "correcte, yet I wold ones endevoyre me to enprynte it agayn, "for to fatisfy the Audour, where as tofore by ygnoraunce I "erryd in hurtyng and dyffamyng his book in dyverce places,

[ocr errors]

in fetting in fomme thynges that he never fayd ne made, and "leving out many thynges that he made, whyche ben requyδε fite to be fette in it. And thus we fyll at accord, and he full "gentyily gate of hys fader the faid book, and delyvered it to me, by whiche I have corrected my book, as heere after alle "alonge by the ayde of almighty God thal folowe, whom I hum, "bly befeche," Mr. Lewis, in his Life of Caxton, p.10.4, 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 fecond editionit is undoubtedly the fecond, but the Preface is lott. There is an imperfect copy of this edition in the Museum, and another

« السابقةمتابعة »