for years accumulating
encouraged him to undertake an edition on a large scale, and I gladly
abandoned, in favor of an editor of so much greater width of reading,
the Library Edition which had been arranged for in the original
agreement of Dr. Furnivall and myself with Messrs. Macmillan. I
thought, however, that the work which I had done might fairly be used
for an edition on a less extensive plan and intended for a less
stalwart class of readers, and of this the present issue of the
Canterbury Tales is an instalment."[B]

So it comes about that we have two texts before us, each based on a
collation of the Six-Text edition and the Harleian MS. 7334--the chief
difference being that Mr. Pollard adheres closely to the Ellesmere
MS., while Professor Skeat allows himself more freedom. This is how
they start--

"Whan that Aprill? with hise shour?s soote
The droghte of March hath perc?d to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eck with his swet? breeth 5
Inspir?d hath in every holt and heeth
The tendr? cropp?s, and the yong? sonne
Hath in the Ram his half? cours y-ronne,
And smal? fowel?s maken melodye
That slepen al the nvght with open eye,-- 10
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages,--
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages ..."

(_Pollard_.)

"Whan that Aprille with his shoures sote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth 5
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yong sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye, 10
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:)
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages..."

(_Skeat._)

On these two extracts it must be observed (1) that the accents and the
dotted e's in the first are Mr. Pollard's own contrivances for helping
the scansion; (2) in the second, l. 10, "ye" is a special contrivance
of Professor Skeat. "The scribes," he says (Introd. Vol. IV. p. xix.),
"usually write _eye_ in the middle of a line, but when they come to it
at the end of one, they are fairly puzzled. In l. 10, the scribe of Hn
('Hengwrt') writes _lye_, and that of Ln ('Lansdown