But it is not introduced in accordance with any fixed rules, and it often assists the flow of the verse without in the least attracting the attention of the reader. We do not find any examples of the rather exaggerated popular style which Chaucer sometimes adopts in passages of violent action, e.g. Cant. Tales, A 2604 ff. The whole subject of alliteration in Gower has been carefully dealt with by P. Höfer in his dissertation, Alliteration bei Gower, 1890, where a very large number of examples are cited and classified; and to this the reader may be referred.
viii. Text and Manuscripts. About forty manuscript copies of the Confessio Amantis are known to exist in public or private libraries or in the hands of booksellers, and probably there may be a few more in private possession, the existence of which has not yet been recorded. As the broad lines for their classification are necessarily laid down by the fact that the book was put forth by the author in several different forms, it is necessary, before proceeding further, to say something about this matter.
That the poem exists in at least two distinct forms, characterized by obvious differences near the beginning and at the end, has been matter of common knowledge. Even in Berthelette’s edition of 1532 the difference at the beginning was noted, and though the printer did not venture to deviate from the form of text which had been made current by Caxton, yet he gave in his preface the beginning of the poem as he found it in his manuscript. Dr. Pauli accordingly proceeded on the assumption that there were two normal forms, one having a dedication to Richard II at the beginning and a form of conclusion in which mention is made of Chaucer, and the other with a dedication to Henry of Lancaster and a conclusion in which Chaucer is not mentioned. Copies which do not conform to these standards are for him simply irregular. He is aware of the additional passages in Berthelette’s edition and in the Stafford MS., and in one place he speaks of three classes of MSS., but he does not know that there are any written copies except the Stafford MS. which contain the additional passages. If he had had personal knowledge of the manuscripts at Oxford and at Cambridge, instead of being satisfied to gather scraps of information about the former from Bodley’s Librarian and about the latter from Todd, he would have found the passages in question also in MS. Bodley 294 at Oxford and in the Trinity and Sidney MSS. at Cambridge.
There are then at least these three classes of manuscripts to be recognized even by a superficial observer, and we shall find that the more obvious differences which have been mentioned are accompanied by a number of others of less importance. The first recension according to our classification is that in which the conclusion of the poem contains praises of Richard II as a just and beneficent ruler and a presentation of the book for his acceptance[AB]. The second has the additional passages of the fifth and seventh books, with a rearrangement of the sixth book which has not hitherto been noticed, while the conclusion of the poem has been rewritten so as to exclude the praises of the king, and in some copies there is also a new preface with dedication to Henry of Lancaster. The third exhibits a return to the form of the first as regards the additional passages, but has the rewritten preface and epilogue. Against this merely threefold division some objections might fairly be made. It might be pointed out that the so-called second recension includes at least two distinct forms, and moreover that upon further examination we see reason to divide the manuscripts of our first recension into two main groups, one exhibiting an earlier and the other a later text, this last being more in accordance generally with that of what we call the second and third recensions than with the earlier form of the first. For practical purposes, however, the division which has been laid down above may fairly be adopted. As regards the order of time, from the political tendency of the differences between them it is clear that what we call the first recension logically precedes the third. The intermediate position of the second is given chiefly by the fact that one of the seven existing manuscripts gives the earlier form of preface, and this may also have been the case with two others, which are defective at the beginning[AC]. However, as has been said, the name is used for convenience to cover a class of copies which, as regards the character of their text, do not all belong to the same period, and they must be looked upon as representing rather a concurrent variety of the first or the third recension[AD] than as a type which is distinctly intermediate in order of time. At the same time the smaller variations of text exhibited by these seven MSS. in combination, as against all others[AE], mark them as really a family apart, more closely related to one another than to those that lie outside the group.
For the sake of clearness the manuscripts are in this edition regularly grouped according to this classification, and in the critical notes each class is cited by itself. At the same time it must not be assumed that the manuscripts of each recension stand necessarily by themselves, and that no connexion is traceable between one class and another. On the contrary, we shall find that many errors in the text of the first recension appear also in some copies of the second, and even of the third. The process by which this was brought about is made clearer to us by the fact that we have an example of a manuscript which has passed from one group into another partly by erasure and partly by substitution of leaves, apparently made under the direction of the author. This is MS. Fairfax 3, which forms the basis of our text, and the handwriting of some of the substituted pages is one which may be recognized as belonging to the ‘scriptorium’ of the poet.
The example is a suggestive one and serves to explain several things. It makes it easy to understand, for example, how the additional matter introduced into the second recension came to be omitted in the third. The author in this instance had before him a very fully revised and corrected copy of his first edition, and this by a certain amount of rewriting over erasure and by a substitution of leaves at the beginning and end of the poem was converted into a copy of what we call the third recension, which his scribes could use at once as an authoritative exemplar. The introduction of the additional passages in the fifth and seventh books could not have been effected without a process of recopying the whole book, which would have called for much additional labour of the nature of proof-reading on the part of the author, in order to secure its correctness. This argument would apply to a book which was intended to remain in the hands of the author, or rather of the scribes whom he employed, and to be used as an archetype from which copies were to be made. If a new book had to be specially prepared for presentation, the case would be different, and it might then be worth while to incorporate the additional passages with the fully revised and re-dedicated text, as we find was done in the case of the so-called Stafford MS.
Another matter which can evidently be explained in the same way is the reappearance in some copies of the second recension of errors which belong to the first. In producing the originals of such manuscripts as these, partially revised copies of the first recension must have been used as the basis, and such errors as had not yet received correction appear in the new edition.
The assumption that a certain number of errors are original, that is to say, go back either to the author’s own autograph or to the transcript first made from it, is in itself probable: we know in fact that some which appear in every copy, without exception, of the first and second recensions at length receive correction by erasure in Fairfax 3. So far as we can judge, the text of the Confessio Amantis during its first years exhibited a steady tendency to rid itself of error, and the process of corruption in the ordinary sense can hardly be said to have set in until after the death of the author. There are a large number of various readings in the case of which we find on the one side the great majority of first recension MSS., and on the other a small number of this same type together with practically the whole of the second and third recensions, as, for example[AF]:
i. 2836 to H₁XERCLB₂ do AJMG, SAdBΔΛ, FWH₃
2847 be om. H₁XGERCLB₂ ins. AJM, SAdBΔ, FWH₃