It follows, I hope, from what I said last week, that by far the most
important service an editor can render to Chaucer and to us is to give
us a pure text, through which the native beauty of the poetry may best
shine. Such a text Professor Skeat has been able to prepare, in part
by his own great industry, in part because he has entered into the
fruit of other men's labors. The epoch-making event in the history of
the Canterbury Tales (with which alone we are concerned here) was Dr.
Furnivall's publication for the Chaucer Society of the famous
"Six-Text Edition." Dr. Furnivall set to work upon this in 1868.