It is not difficult to account for this somewhat confusing dislocation. It is clear that the original MS. was written on quires of the usual size, containing 8 folios apiece. The first 10 quires, which we may call _a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, _e_, _f_, _g_, _h_, _i_, and _k_, were in the right order. The rest of the MS. occupied quire _l_ (of 8 folios), and quire _m_ (of only 2); the last page being blank. The seventh folio of _l_ was torn up the back, so that the two leaves parted company; and the same happened to both the folios in quire _m_, leaving six leaves loose. What then happened was this:--first of all, folios _l__1--_l__4, were reversed and turned inside out; then came the former halves of _m__1, and _m__2, and the latter half of _l__7; next _l__5 and _l__6 (undetached), with the former half of _l__7 thrust in the middle; so that the order in this extraordinary quire was as follows: _l__4, _l__3, _l__2, _l__1, all inside out, half of _m__1, half of _m__2, the latter half of _l__7, _l__5, _l__6, and the former half of _l__7, followed by the six undetached leaves. The last quire simply consisted of _l__8 (entire), followed by the latter halves of _m__2 and _m__1, which were kept in the right order by the fact that the last page was blank. It has thus become possible for us to make some progress towards the right understanding of the work, which has hitherto been much misunderstood. Warton (Hist. E. Poetry, 1840, ii. 218) dismisses it in two lines:--'It is a lover's parody of Boethius's book De Consolatione mentioned above'; whereas the author was not a lover at all, except in a spiritual sense. Even the fuller account in Morley's English Writers (1890), v. 261, is not wholly correct. The statement is there made, that 'it professes to be written, and probably was written, by a prisoner in danger of his life'; but the prison[6] may have been _at first_ metaphorical, as he could hardly have written the whole work in two or three months. In Book iii. ch. 9, ll. 131, 132, he prays that 'God's hand, which has scourged him in mercy, may hereafter mercifully keep and defend him in good plight.' The whole tone of the treatise shews that he is writing to justify himself, and thinks that he has succeeded. But a stern doom was close at hand.