Pauli professed to follow Berthelette’s first edition with collation throughout of MSS. Harl. 7184 and 3869, and occasional reference to Harl. 3490 and the Stafford MS. It is almost impossible that this full collation can really have been made, for by it nearly all Berthelette’s errors might have been corrected, whereas we find them as a matter of fact on every page of Pauli’s edition. As to the critical judgement of the editor, it is enough to say that he regarded Harl. 7184 as a better authority for the text and spelling than either Harl. 3869 or the Stafford MS. (being attracted apparently by the external magnificence of the volume), and that he actually pronounced it to be of the fourteenth cent. His diligence may be measured by the fact that because Harl. 3490 stops short at viii. 3062* (in the middle of a sentence), being left unfinished by the scribe, therefore Pauli’s edition omits the remainder of this conclusion, 3063*-3114*[AL], though he had the MS. in the Royal Library (R) within his reach, by means of which he might have completed his copy. He is also seriously inaccurate in the statements which he makes about the Stafford MS. as regards the additional passages.
A certain number of the errors in Berthelette’s edition are corrected, but very many remain, and in some cases further corruption has been introduced by the editor, either from Harl. 7184 or otherwise. The orthography has been ‘restored,’ but hardly with success.
Morley (1889) followed Pauli’s text, with conjectural alterations of his own, and a few corrections from Berthelette, as i. 773. Often the changes are quite wrong, e.g. Prol. 82, 608, i. 777, 1675 f., 2957 f., the most extraordinary perhaps being iv. 2408 f. The editor professes to omit iii. 142-338 and a few lines here and there in other places. The omissions, however, are much more extensive than this seems to imply. In the fourth book alone they are as follows, 401-408, 428-436, 443-506, 516-523, 1467-1475, 1490-1594, 2131-2182, 2754-2770, 2858-2862, 2883-2888, 3181-3302, and in some cases it is impossible even to conjecture on what principle they are made.
The Present Edition. The text follows the Bodleian Fairfax MS. and every deviation from this is noted. The critical apparatus is constructed upon the following principles.
Three manuscripts have been collated throughout with the text of F, viz. Bodley 902 (A), Corpus Christi Coll. 67 (C), and Bodley 294 (B). These are selected to represent respectively the first recension revised, the first recension unrevised, and the second recension texts. A is an excellent copy, the best of its class, C is a carefully written MS., the best of the group to which it belongs, with the exception of Egerton 1991, and B, besides being a good copy and almost the only second recension MS. which is not imperfect, has perhaps a special claim to attention because its text is of the type which all the editions except that of Caxton have followed. In all cases where variation has been found, except where it is merely of form and spelling or of a very trifling and accidental kind, the readings of at least fourteen other selected copies have been ascertained, and by this procedure those variations which are merely individual have been distinguished from those which are shared by a class or a group. The result is given in the critical notes, all the variations of A and B being there cited except those that are very trifling[AM], while the readings of C are usually given only when shared by some other manuscript.
It is important that it should be observed which the manuscripts are which have thus been referred to and how their evidence is cited. They are divided always according to their recension, first, second or third, and they are cited in an unvarying order, as follows: AJMH₁X(G)ERCLB₂, SAdBTΔ, FWH₃ (or K), so that A ... B₂ means the whole series of the first class, and S ... Δ that of the second, while H₁ ... B₂ stands for H₁X(G)ERCLB₂, and E ... B₂ for ERCLB₂. These nineteen (or eighteen) manuscripts are present as witnesses throughout, whether named or not; for when the manuscripts are named which give a variation, it is to be assumed that the remainder have the reading of the text. Thus the note
‘1295 wisdom] wordes H₁ ... B₂, H₃’
must be taken to imply that ‘wisdom’ is the reading of AJM, SAdBTΔ, FW and ‘wordes’ of H₁XGERCLB₂, H₃:
‘1296 gostly B’
means that the reading of the text, ‘goodly,’ is given by every one of the nineteen except B: