Page:The Library, volume 5, series 3.djvu/200

 1 88 PROBLEMS OF THE ENGLISH carries on the text for another 95 lines. The scribe of B, writing in 1604, likewise knew of the fuller text, but apparently no manuscript contain- ing it was immediately available. He ended even earlier than D and W, namely at line 425, but left the rest of that page and the whole of the next blank. He never supplied the deficiency. Manu- script H has the full text, and there is nothing to suggest that it was not in the source which the scribe followed elsewhere. We have here then a clear instance of conflation, the only one, I believe, that these plays afford. The additional lines found in K and H appear to be quite necessary, and I suppose that their absence in the other manu- scripts is due to the loss of a leaf in the archetype of the elder group. It follows that some at least of the scribes of the elder manuscripts knew of the original of H, and deliberately discarded it in favour of some other, which though imperfect in this par- ticular passage was known to embody more recent reformations. Another case of anomalous grouping is afforded by the ' Banns/ As already explained, a copy of the later banns is included by Rogers in his ' Bre- viary of Chester/ but transcripts appear in certain of the cyclic manuscripts likewise. Neither W nor H ever had them. D is imperfect, beginning with the second pageant, but the five leaves missing would exaftly contain the banns (in the version of K) and the first play. K has the banns complete, so far as introduction and the description of the pageants is concerned, but omits the ' Conclusion ' of twenty-four lines preserved by Rogers. B also