Both of here nether purs and of here cheste.
Diverse scoles maken parfyt clerkes,
And diverse practyk in many sondry werkes
Maken the werkman parfyt sekirly;
Of five husbondes scoleryng am I.'
He adds—'if these lines are not Chaucer's, they are certainly more in his manner than the generality of the imitations of him. Perhaps he wrote them, and afterwards blotted them out. They come in but
awkwardly here, and he has used the principal idea in another place:—
For sondry scoles maken sotil clerkes;
Womman of many scoles half a clerk is'; E. 1427.
I beg leave to endorse Tyrwhitt's opinion; the six lines are certainly genuine, and I therefore repeat them, in a better spelling and form.