appeals to Royalty (his wife was a lady-in-waiting to Edward III's queen and sister to John of Gaunt's wife) in an early version of the phrase "the King's English": "And preie God save the King, that is lord of this language, ..." Manuscripts Skeat identifies 22 manuscripts of varying quality. The best he labels A, B and C which are MS. Dd. 3.53 (part 2) in the Cambridge University Library, MS. E Museo 54 in the Bodleian Library and MS. Rawlinson, Misc. 1262 also in the Bodleian. A and B were apparently written by the same scribe, but A has been corrected by another hand. Skeat observes that the errors are just those described in "Chaucers Wordes unto Adam, His Owne Scriveyn": "So ofte a-daye I mot thy werk renewe, "It to correcte and eek to rubbe and scrape; "And al is thorough thy negligence and rape." A has indeed been rubbed and scraped then corrected by another hand. This latter scribe Skeat believes to be a better writer than the first. To this second writer was the insertion of diagrams entrusted. A and B were apparently written in London about the year 1400, that is some 9 years after the original composition. Manuscript C is also early, perhaps 1420 and closely agrees with A. Audience Chaucer opens with the words "Lyte Lowys my sone". In the past a question arose whether the Lowys was Chaucer's son or some other child he was in close contact with. Kittredge suggested that it could be Lewis Clifford, a son of a friend and possible a godson of Chaucer's. As evidence he advanced that Lewis Clifford died in October 1391, the year of the composition, which could explain its abandonment. Robinson reports though the finding of a document by Professor Manly "recently" (to 1957) which links one Lewis Chaucer with Geoffrey's eldest child Thomas Chaucer. The likelihood therefore is that the dedication can be taken at face value. Chaucer had an eye to the wider public as well. In the prologue he says: Now wol I preie mekely every discret persone that redith or herith this litel tretys..." Structure The work was planned to have an introduction and five sections: A description of the astrolabe A rudimentary course in using the instrument Various tables of longitudes, latitudes, declinations, etc. A "theorike" (theory) of the motion of the celestial bodies, in particular a table