F. (Fairfax 16) is a valuable MS.; not only does it contain as many as sixteen of these Minor Poems, but it is a fairly written MS. of the fifteenth century. The spelling does not very materially
differ from that of such an excellent MS. as the Ellesmere MS. of the Canterbury Tales, excepting in the fact that a great number of final e's are added in wrong places, and are dropped where they are required. This is a matter that can be to a large extent rectified, and I have endeavoured to do so, taking it in many instances as the standard text. Next to this misuse of final e's, which is merely due to the fact that it was written out at a time when the true use of them was already lost, its most remarkable characteristic is the scribe's excessive love of the letter y in place of i; he writes hyt ys instead of hit is, and the like. In a great number of instances I have restored i, where the vowel is short. When the text of the Fairfax MS. is thus restored, it is by no means a bad one. It also contains fair copies of many poems by Hoccleve and Lydgate, such as the former's Letter of Cupide[[242]], and the latter's Complaint of the Black Knight, Temple of Glass, and Balade against Women's Doubleness, being the very piece which is introduced into Stowe's edition, and is numbered 45 above (see p. [33]). We are also enabled, by comparing this MS. with MS. Harl. 7578, to solve another riddle, viz. why it is that Chaucer's Proverbs, as printed in Morris's and Bell's editions, are followed by two 7-line stanzas which have nothing whatever to do with them. In MS. Harl. 7578 these two stanzas immediately follow, and MS. F. immediately precede Chaucer's Proverbs, and therefore were near enough to them to give an excuse for throwing them in together. However, both these stanzas are by Lydgate, and are mere fragments[[243]]. The former of them, beginning 'The worlde so wide, thaire so remuable,' really belongs to a poem of 18 stanzas, printed in Halliwell's edition of Lydgate's Minor Poems (Percy Soc.), p. 193. The latter of them, beginning 'The more I goo, the ferther I am behinde,' belongs to a poem of 11 stanzas, printed in the same, p. 74. Perhaps this will serve as a hint to future editors of Chaucer, from whose works it is high time to exclude poems known to be by some other hand.
In this MS. there is also a curious and rather long poem upon the game of chess; the board is called the cheker, and the pieces are the kyng, the quene or the fers (described on fol. 294), the rokys (duo
Roci), the knyghtys, the Awfyns (duo alfini), and the povnys (pedini). This is interesting in connection with the Book of the Duchess; see note to l. 654 of that poem. The author tells us how 'he plaid at the chesse,' and 'was mated of a Ferse.'
B. (Bodley 638) is very closely related to MS. F.; in the case of some of the poems, both must have been drawn from a common source. MS. B. is not a mere copy of F., for it sometimes has the correct reading where F. is wrong; as, e.g. in the case of the reading Bret in the House of Fame, l. 1208. It contains seven of these Minor Poems, as well as The boke of Cupide god of loue (Cuckoo and Nightingale), Hoccleve's Lettre of Cupide god of loue, Lydgate's Temple of Glass (oddly called Temple of Bras (!), a mistake which occurs in MS. F. also), his Ordre of Folys, printed in Halliwell's Minor Poems of Lydgate, p. 164, and his Complaint of the Black Knight, imperfect at the beginning.
A. (Shirley's MS. Ashmole 59) is remarkable for containing a large number of pieces by Lydgate, most of which are marked as his. It corroborates the statement in MS. F. that he wrote the Balade against Women's Doubleness. It contains the whole of Scogan's poem in which Chaucer's Gentilesse is quoted: see the complete print of it, from this MS., in the Chaucer Society's publications.
Another poem in this MS. requires a few words. At the back of leaf 38 is a poem entitled 'The Cronycle made by Chaucier,' with a second title to this effect:—'Here nowe folowe the names of the nyene worshipfullest Ladyes that in alle cronycles and storyal bokes haue beo founden of trouthe of constaunce and vertuous or reproched (sic) womanhode by Chaucier.' The poem consists of nine stanzas of eight lines (in the ordinary heroic metre), and is printed in Furnivall's Odd Text of Chaucer's Minor Poems, Part I. It would be a gross libel to ascribe this poem to Chaucer, as it is very poor, and contains execrable rimes (such as prysoun, bycome; apply-e, pyte; thee, dy-e). But we may easily see that the title is likely to give rise to a misconception. It does not really mean that the poem itself is by Chaucer, but that it gives a brief epitome of the 'Cronicle made by Chaucier' of 'the nyene worshipfullest Ladyes.' And, in fact, it does this. Each stanza briefly describes one of the nine women celebrated in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women. It is sufficient to add that the author makes a ludicrous mistake, which is quite enough to acquit Chaucer of having had any hand in this wholly
valueless production; for he actually addresses 'quene Alceste' as sorrowing for 'Seyse her husbande.' Seyse is Chaucer's Ceyx, and Alceste is the author's comic substitution for Alcyone; see Book of the Duchess, l. 220. This is not a fault of the scribe; for Alceste rimes with byheste, whereas Alcione does not. I much suspect that Shirley wrote this poem himself. His verses, in MS. Addit. 16165, are very poor.
Tn. (Tanner 346) is a fair MS. of the 15th century, and contains, besides six of the Minor Poems, the Legend of Good Women, Hoccleve's Letter of Cupid (called litera Cupidinis dei Amoris directa subditis suis Amatoribus), the Cuckoo and Nightingale (called the god of loue), Lydgate's Temple of Glas and Black Knight, &c. One of them is the Ballad no. 32 discussed above (p. [40]). At fol. 73 is a poem in thirteen 8-line stanzas, beginning 'As ofte as syghes ben in herte trewe.' One stanza begins with these lines:—
'As ofte tymes as Penelapye