I do not suppose this was ever supposed to be Chaucer's even by Thynne. Line 64--'Quha wait gif all that Chaucer wrait was trew?'--must have settled the question from the first. No doubt Thynne added it simply as a pendant to Troilus, and he must have had a copy before him in the Northern dialect, which he modified as well as he could. Nevertheless, he gives us _can_ for the Southern _gan_ in l. 6, _wrate_ for _wrote_ in l. 64, and has many similar Northern forms. The poem was printed at Edinburgh in 1593 with the author's name. The title is as follows--¶ THE TESTAMENT OF CRESSEID, Compylit be M. Robert Henrysone, Sculemai-ster in Dunfermeling. IMPRENTIT AT EDIN = burgh be Henrie Charteris. MD. XCIII. The text is in 4to, ten leaves, black-letter. Only one copy has been preserved, which is now in the British Museum; but it was reprinted page for page in the volume presented by Mr. Chalmers to the Bannatyne Club in 1824. The present edition is from this reprint, with very few modifications, such as _sh_ for _sch_, and final _-y_ for final _-ie_ in immaterial cases. All other modifications are accounted for in the footnotes below. No early MS. copy is known; there was once a copy in the Asloan MS., but the leaves containing it are lost. Thynne's print must have been a good deal altered from the original, to make it more intelligible. It is odd to find him altering _quhisling_ (20) to _whiskyng_, and _ringand_ (144) to _tynkyng_. I note all Thynne's variations that are of any interest. He must have been much puzzled by _aneuch in_ (which he seems to have regarded as one word and as a past participle) before he turned it into _enewed_ (110). But in some cases Thynne gives us real help, as I will now point out. In l. 48, E. (the Edinburgh edition) has--'Quhill Esperus reioisit him agane'; where _Esperus_ gives no good sense. But Thynne prints _esperous_, which at once suggests _esperans_ (hope), as opposed to _wanhope_ in the preceding line. In l. 155, E. has _frosnit_, which Laing interprets 'frozen,' as if the pp. of _freeze_ could have both a strong and weak pp. suffix at the same moment! But Thynne has _frounsed_, evidently put for _fronsit_, as used elsewhere by Henryson in The Fable of the Paddock and the Mous, l. 43:--'The Mous beheld unto her _fronsit_ face.' A printer's error of _sn_ for _ns_ is not surprising. In ll. 164, 178, 260, E. has _gyis_ or _gyse_; but Thynne has preserved the true Chaucerian word _gyte_, which the printer evidently did not understand. It is true that in l. 164 he turned it into _gate_; but when he found it recur, he let it alone. In l. 205, E. has _upricht_ (!); which Thynne corrects. In l. 290, Th. has _iniure_ for _iniurie_, and I think he is right, though I have let _injurie_ stand; _iniure_ is Chaucer's form (Troil. iii. 1018), and it suits the scansion better.