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"Thynne in his Glossary"
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"Thynne in his Glossary"

Thus Blake could not have used the 1775-78 first edition of Tyrwhitt (or its many reprinted versions—these were set by compositors who took few liberties with the material), and he did not use Urry either. Some evidence discussed at length by Bentley, Kiralis, and Bowden points weakly in the same direction. The source, or at least one of Blake's study texts, should contain a note attributable to "Thynne": Blake reports in his Catalogue that "Thynne in his Glossary says [the Tabarde] was the lodging of the Abbot of Hyde, by Winchester" (Erdman 532). As Kiralis has pointed out, William Thynne's sixteenth-century editions had no glossaries, and this note could only have been found in Speght, Urry, or Tyrwhitt, all of whom offered the same information in the same words (168). But neither Urry nor Tyrwhitt is likely to have been the source of Blake's note, for both attribute the information to Speght rather than to Thynne, and neither contains any suggestion that William Thynne, the sixteenth-century editor, or his son Frances Thynne, who helped Speght to improve the 1602 edition, contributed the glossary or the note.

To the extent that this note is useful evidence, it suggests that Blake consulted an edition that contained a glossary including this note and that could have given him the mistaken impression that the glossary was the work of Thynne. Only the last two Speght editions satisfy both requirements, for no earlier or later edition has a glossary with this note that could be attributed to Thynne. Speght's address "To the Readers" in the revised edition of 1602 (reprinted in 1687) thanks the younger Thynne for his help:

Mr. Francis Thynn . . . most kindly lent me his Help and Direction. By this means most of his [i.e., Chaucer's] old Words are restored; Proverbs and Sentences marked; such Notes as were collected, drawn into better order; and the Text by old Copies corrected.
Blake's mistake here is entirely understandable. What is a little surprising is his spelling of "Thynne," which is not spelled with an "e" anywhere in either the 1602 or 1687 edition, but is the usual spelling of this common English name.


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Blake's reference to the note is also useful because it helps to discredit all pre-Speght editions, including that of William Thynne. These editions have no notes and no glossaries; furthermore, their texts all contain discrediting incongruencies with Blake's quotations.