n his edition by far the worst that was ever published." One
is not surprised when Tyrwhitt, the model of gentlemanly and scholarly
editor, a very pattern of temperate, equitable, and merciful criticism,
cannot refrain from closing his preface with this extinguishing censure
of his wilful predecessor--"Mr Urry's edition should never be opened by
any one for the purpose of reading Chaucer."

Morell, a scholar, published in 1737 the Prologue and the Knight's
Tale--and he, too, marked at need the Mute E's in his text, but by what
rule Tyrwhitt does not intimate, nor do we now distinctly recollect. He
courageously holds that the numbers of Chaucer "are always musical,
whether they want or exceed the complement." But that cannot well be;
for except in very peculiar cases--such, for example, as the happy line,
"Gingling in the whistling wind full clear"--if the MS. have it so--a
line of nine syllables only must be a _lame_ one--and their frequent
recurrence would be the destruction of all music.

Tyrwhitt urges the reason of pronouncing the final E; namely, that it
remains to us from a language in which it formed a syllable. So from the
Norman French we have _fac_-E, _host_-E, _chang_-E, &c. This is basing
the matter on its true ground. It must, however, be acknowledged with
some sorrow, that this well-schooled, clear-minded, and most laborious
editor did not feel himself bound, for the behoof of his author, to
master, as far as the philology of the day might have enabled him, the
Saxon tongue itself, and learn from the fountain what might, and what
could not be--the language of Chaucer. Imperfect as the study of the
Anglo-Saxon then was, he would thus have possessed a needful mastery
over the manuscripts, upon which, as it was, he wholly depended; and he
would have been saved from some unguarded philological assertions and
whimsical speculations. Wanting this guidance, the work, so well
executed as it is, is a monument only the more to be wondered at of his
indefatigable industry and extraordinary good sense.

Upon any where opening Chaucer, of the many seemingly defective verses,
(Dryden in saying thousands may have exaggerated the number even in
Speght,) by far the greater part will be found recoverable to measure by
that restitution of the Mute E which we since, too exclusively perhaps,
connect with the name of Tyrwhitt. The confidence felt in his text,
however--the only one upon which a metrical scholar dares work--in s