"The Oriel copy is evidently the best. Not only does it give better readings, but the lines, as a rule, run more smoothly; and it has an extra stanza. This stanza, which is marked 54, occurs between stanzas 53 and 54 of the other copies, and is of some interest and importance. It shows that Lidgate's pupil, put in mind of Lidgate's style by the very mention of his name, introduces a ballad of three stanzas, in which every stanza has a burden after the Lidgate manner. The recurrence of this burden no doubt caused copyists to lose their place, and so the stanza came to be omitted in other copies. Its omission, however, spoils the ballad. Both it and the curious lines in Piers Ploughmans Crede, "For aungells and arcangells / all Þei whijt vseÞ And alle aldermen / Þat ben _ante tronum_, "i.e. all the elders before the throne, allude to Rev. iv. 10. This Crede passage has special reference to the _Carmelites_ or _White_ Friars. "The first two leaves of the Oriel copy are misplaced inside out at the end; but this is not the only misarrangement. The poem has evidently been copied into this MS. from an older copy having a leaf capable of containing _six stanzas at a time_; which leaves were out of order. Hence the poem in the Oriel MS. is written in the following order, as now bound up, Stanzas 11 (l. 5)-18, 25-30, 37-42, 19-24, 49-54, 31-36, 43-48, 55-76, 8-11 (l. 4), 4 (l. 5)-7, 1-4 (l. 4)." As an instance of a word improved by the Oriel text, may be cited the '_brecheles_ feste' of Caxton's and Hill's texts, l. 66, and l. 300, ffor truste ye well ye shall you not excuse ffrom _brecheles feste_, & I may you espye Playenge at any game of rebawdrye.--_Hill_, l. 299-301. Could it be 'profitless,' from A.-Sax. _bréc_, gain, profit; or 'breechless,' a feast of birch for the boy with his breeches off? The latter was evidently meant, but it was a forced construction. The Oriel _byrcheley_ set matters right at once. Another passage I cannot feel sure is set at rest by the Oriel text. Hill's and Caxton's texts, when describing the ill-mannered servant whose ways are to be avoided, say of him, as to his hair, that he is Absolon with disheveled heres smale, lyke to a prysoner of saynt Malowes,[1] _a sonny busshe able to the galowes_.--_Hill_, l. 462. [Footnote 1: An allusion to the strong castle built at St Malo's by Anne, Duchess of Bretayne.--Dyce.] For the last line the Oriel MS. reads, _a sonny bush myght cause hym to goo louse_,