The Temple, or A Temple

I have had an opportunity of seeing the edition of Chaucer referred to by your correspondent P.H.F. (Vol. i., p. 420.), and likewise several other black-letter editions (1523, 1561, 1587, 1598, 1602), and find that they all agree in reading "the temple," which Caxton's edition also adopts. The general reading of "temple" in the *modern* editions, naturally induced me to suspect that Tyrwhitt had made the alteration on the authority of the manuscripts of the poem. Of these there are no less than ten in the British Museum, all of which have been kindly examined for me. One of these wants the pro…