For the accomplishment of the third great end, that of Publication, there is no existing machinery. But let the work of collection and preservation be once fairly entered upon--let it be seen how valuable a collection of materials has been gathered ready to the hand of a Society which should undertake its publication, and there need be little fear that from the supporters of the various Antiquarian, Archæological, and Publishing Societies, now spread throughout the country, there would be found plenty of good men and true ready to lend their aid to the printings and publishing of the MONUMENTARIUM ANGLICANUM.
But as the first step is COLLECTION--and that step is the one in which the SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES can best move, we trust that the present year, in which this Society celebrates the centenary of its chartered existence, will be signalised by its promotion of such a Record of Existing Monuments as is here proposed; which cannot be otherwise regarded--(and we use the words of the Society's Charter)--than as "good, useful, honest, and necessary for the encouragement, advancement, and furtherance of the study and knowledge of Antiquities and the History of this Country."
"Whanne that April with his shoures sote The droughte of March hath perced to the rote, And bathed every veine in swiche licour Of which vertue engendred is the flour; When Zephyrus eke with his sote brethe Enspired hath in every holt and hethe The tendre croppes--and the yonge Sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne; * * * * Than longen folk to gon on pilgrimages-- * * * * * * * * Befelle, that in that seson, on a day."--_Prologue._
I quote these lines because I wish to show that Tyrwhitt, in taking them as indicative of the very day on which the journey to Canterbury was performed, committed a great mistake.
The whole of the opening of the prologue, down to the line last quoted, is descriptive, not of any particular day, but of the usual season of pilgrimages; and Chaucer himself plainly declares, by the words "in _that_ seson, on _a_ day"--that the day is _as yet_ indefinite. { 316}
But because Tyrwhitt, who, although an excellent literary critic, was by no means an acute reader of his author's meaning, was incapable of appreciating the admirable combination of physical facts by which Chaucer has not only identified the real day of the pilgrimage, but has placed it, as it were, beyond the danger of alteration by any possible corruption in the text, he set aside these physical facts altogether, and took in lieu of them the seventh and eighth lines of the prologue quoted above, which, I contend, Chaucer did not intend to bear any reference to the day of the journey itself, but only to the general season in which it was undertaken.