Ben y-lope to Lundone
Be leve of hire bisshop,
And ben clerkis of the kinges bench
The cuntré to shende.
[438]. Taillours, tanneris, | And tokkeris bothe. MS. Trin. 2.
[453]. The Cottonian MS. Vespas. B. xvi, from which Price has given a long extract in his edition of Warton, has here "With wyne of Oseye | and wyn of Gascoyne." Whitaker's reading is "Whit wyn of Oseye and of Gascoyne." Price observes, in a note, "good wyne of Gaskyne, and the wyne of Osee [is the reading of MS. Harl. No. 875].—The same hand already noticed has corrected wyn to weyte (wheat) of Gascoyne;—an obvious improvement." I by no means partake in this opinion: wine of Gascony, and not wheat of Gascony, is perpetually alluded to in the literature of France and England from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. The reading of the text now printed is evidently the original one, which has been corrupted in the others: the wine more particularly known as Gascon, was a red wine. The writer of "La Desputoison du Vin et de l'Iaue," says of it—
Vin de Gascoigne, sa coulour
N'est pas de petite valour;
Les autres vins fet honnorer.
Quant de soi les veult coulourer: