‘Kyng Salomon whiche had at his askyng
Of god | what thyng him was leuest craue
He chase wysedom vnto gouernyng
Of goddes folke | the whiche he wolde saue
And as he chase it fyl him for to haue
For through his wytte while yt his reigne last
He gate him peace and rest in to his last’
All the material variations of Thynne are given in the critical notes, but not his differences of spelling. Wright’s text is not to be trusted as a reproduction of the Trentham MS. He made several serious mistakes in copying from or collating it, and he has a good many trifling inaccuracies of spelling. The following are his worst errors:
l. 3 om. this 16 the for thi 71 To stere peace (following Thynne) 108 om. doth tofalle for to falle 136 than for that 173 But aftirwards 202 om. worthi 211 any for a 246 [good] seeming to imply that it is not in the MS. 263 Which heliples 278 reserved for deserved 289 man for king 292 [up] 306 begete for be gete 356 Resteined for Resceived 363 deleated for debated 382 sese for see. In addition to these rather gross blunders, he has about a hundred smaller deviations from the manuscript which he professes to follow, as, for example, 7 for to for forto (and so afterwards) 16 him self for himself (and so afterwards) 19 But 27 reqwest for reqweste 39 might for myht 56 shal for schal 83 lefte for left 84 not for noght 90 charitie for charite 98 Both for Bothe 102 gone for goon nygth for nyght 110 dothe 112 I 120 Crists 155 fulfilled 172 wille 194 destruied 219 made 254 Ffirst chirche her silf 260 sick 280 life 287 made an end 319 found 355 Which 382 meschiefe and a good many more. He also omits in a very misleading manner the last lines of the rubric which follows the poem, ‘Et nunc sequitur epistola’ &c., as well as the ‘epistle’ itself, ‘Rex celi deus’; and he makes it appear that the lines ‘Henrici quarti’ &c. follow at once, whereas they are at the end of the MS. and in a different hand.
I think it worth while to specify these instances because Wright’s edition has been accepted by Prof. Skeat as an accurate reproduction of a manuscript which is not generally accessible, and if no notice were taken here of the readings given by Wright, it would still remain in doubt whether he or I represented the text more correctly. Especially in the cases where Wright has bracketed a word as not occurring in the manuscript, it might be supposed that his positive testimony was to be preferred.