Torrent of Portyngale - Re-Edited from the Unique MS. Inthe Chetham Library Manchester (Early English Text Society Original Series, No. 51)2012

This Chetham MS. contains the romance in a very debased and corrupt form, so that the original reading in many passages can hardly be recognized. 1 The scribe, who copied the poem from an older MS. , lived (no doubt) at a far later period than the poet; he did not therefore understand a great many old expressions, and these he used to supplant by words of his own; he also transposed and even omitted many lines, and spoiled the rhyme, because he had not the slightest idea of the nature of the stanza in which the poem is composed.