Now I know of no passage more likely to have been tampered with in this way, than those lines of the prologue to the _Persone's Tale_, alluded to at the close of my last communication. Because, supposing (which I shall afterwards endeavour to prove) that Chaucer really meant to write something to this effect: "Thereupon, as we were entering a town, the moon's rising, with Min al auwâ in Libra, began to ascend (or to become visible),"--and supposing that his mode of expressing this had been, "Therewith the mone's exaltacioun, In libra men alawai gan ascende, As we were entrying at a towne's end:" --in such a case, what can be more probable than that some ignorant transcriber, never perhaps dreaming of such a thing as the Arabic name of a star, would endeavour _to make sense_ of these, to him, obscure words, by converting them into English. The process of transition would be easy; "min" or "men" requires little violence to become "mene" (the modern "mean" with its many significations), and "al auwâ" (or "alwai," as Chaucer would probably write it) is equally identical with "alway." The misplacement of "Libra" might then follow as a seeming necessity; and thus the line would assume its present form, leaving the reader to understand it, either with Urry, as, "I mene Libra, that is, I _refer to_ Libra;" or with Tyrwhitt: "In mene Libra, that is, In _the middle of_ Libra." Now, to Urry's reading, it may be objected that it makes _the thing ascending_ to be Libra, and does not of necessity imply the moon's appearance above the horizon. But since the rising of the moon is a _visible_ phenomenon, while that of Libra is theoretical, it must have been _to the former_ Chaucer was alluding, as to something witnessed by the whole party as they "Were entrying at a towne's end;" or otherwise this latter observation would have no meaning. The objection to Tyrwhitt's reading is of a more technical nature--the moon, if in _the middle_ of Libra, _could not_ be above the horizon, in the neighbourhood of Canterbury, at four o'clock P. M., in the month of April. Tyrwhitt, it is true, would probably smooth away the difficulty by charging it as another inconsistency against his author; but I--and I hope by this time such readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" as are interested in the subject--have seen too many proofs of Chaucer's competency in matters of science, and of his commentator's incompetency, to feel disposed to concede to the latter such a convenient method of interpretation. But there is a third objection common to both readings--that they do not satisfactorily account for the word "alway;" for although Tyrwhitt endeavours to explain it by _continually_, "was _continually_ ascending," such a phrase is by no means intelligible when applied to a single observation.