The net result is this; that none of the editions are complete, and they are all _much the same_. After twenty editions, we are left almost where we started at first. Thynne's edition was founded on a MS. very closely resembling F., but more complete; still it omits four lines, and gives l. 2338 twice over, in different forms. The same is true of all the numerous reprints from it. Bell's edition restores ll. 1326, 1327, but in the wrong place; whilst Morris's edition restores them in the right place. These lines actually occur in MS. F. (in the right place), and could hardly have been unnoticed in collating the proofs with the MS. These editions are both supposed to be collated with MS. A. at least, but the results of such collation are practically _nil_, as that MS. was merely consulted to supply missing lines. The editors practically ignore the readings of that MS., except where F. is imperfect. Hence they did not discover that MS. A. _belongs to a different class of MSS., and that it frequently gives earlier and better readings_. But even A. omits ll. 960, 961, though it also rightly suppresses the spurious form of l. 2338. § 14. SOME IMPROVEMENTS IN MY EDITION OF 1889. No real advance towards a better text was made till Dr. Furnivall brought out, for the Chaucer Society, his valuable and exact prints of the manuscripts themselves. This splendid and important work gives the texts _in extenso_ of all the MSS. above mentioned, viz. MSS. C., F., Tn., T., A., and Th. (Thynne's ed.) in the 'Parallel-Text edition of Chaucer's Minor Poems,' Part III; MSS. B., Addit. 9832, P., and Addit. 12524, in the 'Supplementary Parallel-Texts,' Part II; and MSS. [alpha], [beta], [gamma], in 'Odd Texts,' 1880. But for the invaluable help thus rendered, the edition of 1889 would never have been undertaken, and I should never have attained to so clear an understanding of the text. I have already said that Dr. Furnivall was the _first_ person who succeeded in numbering the lines of the poem correctly; indeed, most editions have no numbering at all.