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176 PROBLEMS OF THE ENGLISH of Wright's reading. In the course of a careful collation I have been able to detect several such substitutions, and I am not altogether confident of having eliminated all spurious cases of agreement between manuscripts P and W. All suspicious concurrences have, however, been carefully ex- amined, and if errors yet remain I do not think they are likely to be of a kind to vitiate our results. It may be said, in palliation perhaps of the action of the modern retoucher, that he was not the first to tamper with the manuscript. Already in the sixteenth century it had shown signs of fading, and some scribe not only repeated some doubtful words in the margin or between the lines, but here and there actually wrote over the original text exa6Hy as his successor did later. And in one passage the modern restorer has written on the top of the earlier restorations, so that it is possible to trace no less than three superimposed layers of writing. The Chester cycle was first edited by Thomas Wright in 1 843-7.' He knew of the existence of 1 Extracts had appeared earlier. The complete list of editions, excluding a few popular reprints of individual plays, is, I believe, as follows (see Chambers, * Mediaeval Stage,' ii. 407) : 1818. Chester Mysteries. De deluvio Noe, De occisione inno- centium, together with the Banns, i edited by J. H. Markland for the Roxburghe Club. From K, with collations of H and B. 1836. Five Miracle Plays, edited by J. P. Collier. Including < Antichrist,' from D. 1838. A Collection of English Miracle-Plays or Mysteries, edited by W. Marriott. Including ' Noah ' and * Antichrist,' the first from H, the second from K. 1843-7. The Chester Plays, edited by Thomas Wright for the Shakespeare Society. Two volumes. From W, with the banns from K. 1890. English Miracle Plays, Moralities and Interludes, edited