INDEX OF BOOKS REFERRED TO IN THE NOTES 390 LIST OF MANUSCRIPTS 399 GENERAL LIST OF ERRATA 400 GENERAL INDEX 410 * * * * * GENERAL INTRODUCTION s. 1. In the very brief Introduction to vol. I., I have given a sketch of the general contents of the present work. I here take occasion, for the reader's information, to describe somewhat more particularly the chief objects which I have had in view. In the first place, my endeavour has been to produce a thoroughly sound text, founded solely on the best MSS. and the earliest prints, which shall satisfy at once the requirements of the student of language and the reader who delights in poetry. In the interest of both, it is highly desirable that Chaucer's genuine works should be kept apart from those which were recklessly associated with them in the early editions, and even in modern editions have been but imperfectly suppressed. It was also desirable, or rather absolutely necessary, that the recent advances in our knowledge of Middle-English grammar and phonetics should be rightly utilised, and that no verbal form should be allowed to appear which would have been unacceptable to a good scribe of the fourteenth century[1]. I have also provided a large body of illustrative notes, many of them gathered from the works of my predecessors, but enlarged by illustrations due to my own reading during a long course of years, and by many others due to the labours of the most recent critics. The number of allusions that have been traced to their origin during the last fifteen years is considerable; and much additional light has thus been thrown upon Chaucer's method of treating his originals. How far such investigation has been successful, can readily be gathered from an inspection of the Index of Authors Quoted in the present volume, in which the passages quoted by Chaucer are collected and arranged, and an alphabetical list is given of the authors whom he appears to have most consulted.