With regard to the use of capitals, this edition in the main follows the MS. Some letters, however, as _k_, _v_, _w_, _y_, can hardly be said to have any difference of form, and others are used rather rarely as capitals, while in the case of some, and especially _s_, the capital form is used with excessive freedom. It has seemed desirable therefore to introduce a greater degree of consistency, while preserving the general usage of the MS. Proper names are regularly given in this edition with capitals (usually so in the MS., but not always), and sentences are begun with capital letters after a full stop. On the other hand the _I_ (or _J_), which is often used as an initial, has frequently been suppressed, and occasionally this has been done in the case of other letters. It may be observed, however, that capital letters are on the whole used very systematically in the MS., and other good MSS., especially S, agree with F in the main principles. Certain substantives as ‘Ere,’ ‘Erthe,’ ‘Schip,’ ‘Sone,’ ‘Ston,’ are almost invariably used with capitals, and names of animals, as ‘Cat,’ ‘Hare,’ ‘Hound,’ ‘Leoun,’ ‘Mous,’ ‘Oxe,’ ‘Pie,’ ‘Ro,’ ‘Schep,’ ‘Tigre,’ of some parts of the body, as ‘Arm,’ ‘Hiele,’ ‘Lippes,’ ‘Nase,’ ‘Pappes,’ ‘Skulle,’ and many other concrete substantives, are apt to be written with capitals, sometimes apparently in order to give them more importance. Capitals are seldom thus used except in the case of substantives and some numerals, as ‘Nyne,’ ‘Seconde,’ ‘Sexte,’ ‘Tenthe,’ and in many cases it is pretty evident that a distinction is intended, e.g. between ‘Sone’ and ‘sone’ (adv.), ‘Se’ (= sea) and ‘se’ (verb), ‘Dore’ and ‘dore’ (verb), see iv. 2825 f., ‘More’ and ‘more,’ ‘Pype’ and ‘pipe’ (verb), iv. 3342 f., ‘Myn’ and ‘myn’ (poss. pron.), ‘Mone’ and ‘mone’ (verb), but see v. 5804, 5808, ‘In’ and ‘in,’ vii. 4921 f., viii. 1169 f., 1285 f. That some importance was attached to the matter is shown by the cases where careful alterations of small letters into capitals have been made in the MS., as Prol. 949, i. 1687, v. 1435, 3206, 4019, vii. 2785, &c. Many corrections were made by the first hand, and some of these are noteworthy, especially the cases where a final _e_ seems to be deliberately erased for the sake of the metre or before a vowel, as i. 60 ‘get’ for ‘gete,’ iii. 2346 ‘trew’ for ‘trewe,’ vi. 1359 ‘I red’ for ‘I rede,’ vii. 1706 ‘ffyf’ for ‘ffyue,’ or where an _e_ has been added afterwards, as ii. 3399 ‘deþe,’ iii. 449 ‘bowe,’ v. 1269, 3726, 5265, ‘whiche.’