[§ 19]. Book III. The first chapter is again introductory, explaining why the number of Books is three. 'The Margaret in virtue is likened to Philosophy, with her three kinds.' It is remarkable that this Third Book, which is dedicated to Joy, is the dullest of the three, being largely taken up with the questions of predestination and free will, with more borrowings from Chaucer's Boethius. In Chapter V, Love explains how continuance in good will produces the fruit of Grace; and, in Chapters VI and VII, shews how such grace is to be attained. Chapter IX recurs to the subject of predestination; after which the work comes to a formal conclusion, with excuses for its various imperfections.

[§ 20. II. The Plowmans Tale.]

This piece does not appear in Thynne's first edition of 1532, but occurs, for the first time, in the second edition of 1542, where it is added at the end of the Canterbury Tales, after the Parson's Tale. In the next (undated) edition, probably printed about 1550, it is placed before the Parson's Tale, as if it were really Chaucer's, and the same arrangement occurs in the fourth edition, that of 1561, by John Stowe. It is worth mentioning that some booksellers put forward a fable as to the true date of the undated

edition being 1539, in order to enhance the value of their copies; but the pretence is obviously false, as is shewn by collation[[11]]; besides which, it is not likely that the Plowman's Tale would have been at first inserted before the Parson's Tale, then placed after it, and then again placed before it. It is best to separate the first four editions by nearly equal intervals, their dates being, respectively, 1532, 1542, about 1550, and 1561.

Comparison of the black-letter editions shews that the first is the best; and the later ones, being mere reprints, grow gradually worse. Hence, in this case, the edition of 1542 is the sole authority, and the readings of the inferior copies may be safely neglected. It is remarkable that Mr. T. Wright, in his edition of this poem printed in his Political Poems and Songs, i. 304, should have founded his text upon a reprint of Speght in 1687, when he might have taken as his authority a text more than 140 years older. The result is, naturally, that his text is much worse than was at all necessary.

According to Speght, there was once a MS. copy of this piece in Stowe's library, but no one knows what became of it. According to Todd, in his Illustrations of Gower and Chaucer, p. xxxix, there was once a black-letter edition of it, entitled 'The Plouuman's tale compylled by syr Geffray Chaucer knyght.' Todd says: 'It is of the duodecimo size, in the black letter, without date, and imprinted at London in Paules churche-yarde at the sygne of the Hyll, by Wyllyam Hyll. I have compared with the poem as printed by Urry forty or fifty lines, and I found almost as many variations between them[[12]]. The colophon of this book is, Thus endeth the boke of Chaunterburye Tales. This rarity belongs to the Rev. Mr. Conybeare, the present Professor of the Saxon language in the University of Oxford.' This edition can no longer be traced. Hazlitt mentions a black-letter edition of this piece, printed separately by Thomas Godfray (about 1535), on twenty leaves; of which only one copy is known, viz. that at Britwell. There is also a late print of it in the Bodleian Library, dated 1606.

[§ 21]. It is needless to discuss the possibility that Chaucer wrote this Tale, as it is absent from all the MSS.; and it does not

appear that the ascription of it to him was taken seriously. It is obvious, from the introductory Prologue (p. [147]), that the author never intended his work to be taken for Chaucer's; he purposely chooses a different metre from any that occurs in the Canterbury Tales, and he introduces his Ploughman as coming under the Host's notice quite suddenly, so that the Host is constrained to ask him—'what man art thou?' The whole manner of the Tale is conspicuously and intentionally different from that of Chaucer; and almost the only expression which at all resembles Chaucer occurs in ll. 51, 52:—

'I pray you that no man me reproche

Whyl that I am my tale telling.'