CHAUCER'S NIGHT-SPELL.
YRWHITT'S Canterbury Tales enjoyed for half a century the reputation of being the best edited poem in the English language. But it had one failing: it was Tyrwhitt's text, and not the text of any one M.S. In 1847 the late Mr. Thomas Wright edited the Canterbury Tales for the Percy Society from the Harleian M.S. No. 7334, which he pronounced the "best and oldest MS." he had met with. That edition was a great boon to Chaucer students; albeit it bore occasional evidence that the editor, whose powers of work (great as they were) were always overtaxed, had not been able to bestow upon it the time and consideration necessary to do justice to his author or to his own powers of illustrating the language and allusions of Chaucer.
This is strikingly illustrated by the note which he makes on the curious Night Charm, which in The Miller's Tale Chaucer has put into the mouth of the carpenter:
"Lord Jhesu Crist, and seynte Benedyht
Blesse this hous from every wikked wight,
Fro nyghtes verray, the white Paternostre
When wonestow now, seynte Petres soster."
This is Mr. Wright's version of the text. I now quote his note on Verray. "This is the reading of the MSS. I have consulted. Tyrwhitt reads mare, which is perhaps right."
Seeing that Verray was the reading of the MS. which he had selected as the "best and oldest," and of the other MSS. which he had consulted, I certainly was surprised to find Mr. Wright coming to the conclusion that Trwhitt's reading "mare" is perhaps right.
In spite of my respect for Mr. Wright's judgment on any matter connected with our early language and literature, I took a different
