III
That Speght made use of Gg has now, I feel, been conclusively
demonstrated and is in consequence regardable as a fact in the manuscript's
provenance.[17] The significance of the
fact may be seen in the following quotation from Manly and Rickert (I,
178) concerning additions to Gg thought to have been done, or
commissioned, by Holland:
At the end of the MS are added 35 leaves containing transcriptions
. . . supplying the text of the lost leaves . . . taken mainly from the 1598
edition . . . also a glossary, basically Speght's but expanded; and the
portrait of Chaucer with the coats-of-arms, cut from the 1598 edition, and
pasted in.
[18]
Thus a curiously reciprocal relationship obtains: Not only was Gg used to
augment Speght; Speght was earlier used to supplement Gg!
