HYE RYSWICK. 



63 



and Ruytcr the Dufch. He afterwards served 

 against the Portuguese, the Swedes, and the Alge- 

 rines, previously to the naval warfare between 

 England and Holland, in the reign of Charles II. 

 He commanded in the great battle fought in the 

 Downs, in June, 1G66, against prince Rupert (q. v.) 

 and the duke of Albemarle (see Monk); and, in 

 the following year, he insulted the English by his 

 memorable expedition up the Thames, when he de- 

 stroyed IJpnor castle, and burnt some ships at Chat- 

 ham. He was admiral of the Dutch fleet at the 

 battle of Solebay in 1672, and signalized his skill 

 and courage on several other occasions. He died 

 in the port of Syracuse, April 29, 1676, in conse- 

 quence of a wound received in an engagement with 

 the French, a few days before, off Messina. His 

 body was carried to Amsterdam, where the states- 

 general erected a monument to his memory. 



RYE (secale cereale) ; a species of grain, gene- 

 rally considered, in temperate climates, next in 

 value to wheat. It is a grass, from four to six feet 

 high, with a fibrous annual root, producing one or 

 several slender culms, which are provided at their 

 articulations with linear and smooth leaves; the 

 flowers are greenish, disposed in a terminal simple 

 compressed spike, four or five inches in length. It 

 is supposed to have been brought originally from 

 the Levant, but has been cultivated in Europe 

 from a very ancient period. Of all domestic plants, 

 it has been the least altered by cultivation, and no 

 permanent variety has been produced. It is the 

 only species of the genus. Rye succeeds better in 

 cold climates than wheat, grows in a greater variety 

 of soils, resists severe frosts better, and arrives at 

 maturity sooner. All soils will produce rye, pro- 

 vided they are not too moist ; and many barren 

 lands, which are unsuitable for the cultivation of 

 wheat, may be sown with this grain to advantage. 

 The time of sowing is earlier than with any other 

 grain. It does not require so much attention dur- 

 ing its growth as wheat, and the ripening varies 

 according as the season is more or less warm and 

 favourable, from the first of July to the last of the 

 month ; but, in general, it precedes wheat by fifteen 

 or twenty days. . In some countries, it is customary 

 to sow in March ; but it rarely produces so well as 

 when sown before the setting in of the winter. In 

 many places, it is cultivated only for fodder, which 

 is an excellent plan, as cattle are often in want of 

 green food in the early spring. Rye is the principal 

 sustenance in the greater part of the north of 

 Europe, and, after wheat, nourishes the greatest 

 portion of the population of that continent. Even 

 in more than half of France, rye bread, either pure 

 or mixed with wheat in equal proportions, is the 

 only kind to be procured. Rye bread is not so 

 nutritious as wheat, but has more flavour. The 

 farina, or meal, differs from that of the latter in 

 containing a much smaller proportion of gluten. In 

 the north, the greater part of the ardent spirits is 

 distilled from rye. The straw is long, flexible, 

 and does not rot so easily as that of other grain ; it 

 is used by brick-makers and collar-manufacturers, 

 and is considered an excellent material for the 

 thatching of cottages and barns. Rye is but little 

 cultivated in Great Britain. For spurred rye, see 

 Ergot. 



RYE ; a borough-town of England, in the county 

 of Sussex, and one of the cinque port towns. It is 

 situated sixty-three miles south-east from London, 

 on an eminence in the British channel, at the mouth 

 of the river Rother. The commerce carried on 



here is chiefly in corn, coal, hops, oak-bark, timber, 

 and wool ; the herring and mackerel fisheries, in 

 their season, afford much profitable employment. 

 ' Population in 1831, 3,715. in 1841, 4.031. 



RYE HOUSE PLOT. See Russell, Lord 

 William, and Sidney, Algernon. 



RYMER, THOMAS, of Eruldon or Earlston. in 

 Berwickshire, otherwise called THOMAS THE 

 RHYMEK, was a poet or romancer, who flourished 

 during the thirteenth century. To this day, the 

 name of Thomas the Rhymer is popularly known 

 in Scotland as a prophet ; and it is only by a late 

 discovery of the manuscript of a metrical romance 

 called " Sir Tristram," that he has acquired a less 

 exceptionable claim to remembrance. " The Pro- 

 phecies of Thomas the Rhymer," were published, 

 in Latin and English, at Edinburgh, in 1615, and 

 have been repeatedly reprinted, copies of them being 

 still to be found among the country people of Scot- 

 land. The romance of " Sir Tristram" was consi- 

 dered to be lost, till a copy of it was discovered 

 among the Auchinleck manuscripts belonging to 

 the library of the faculty of advocates, Edinburgh, 

 and published, with introduction and notes, by Sir 

 Walter Scott. The reader is referred to that edi- 

 tion for all that is to be learned regarding the work 

 and its author. See also an article on the metrical 

 romances of Sir Tristram in No. VII. of the 

 'Foreign Review.' 



RYMER, THOMAS, a critic and antiquary, studied 

 at Cambridge and at Gray's-inn. In 1678, he pub- 

 lished Edgar, a Tragedy, and wrote a work entitled 

 a View of the Tragedies of the last Age. Succeed- 

 ing Shadwell, in 1692, as royal historiographer, he 

 employed the opportunities afforded him by his of- 

 fice, to make a collection of public treaties, which 

 he began to publish in 1704, under the title of 

 Fcudera, Conventiones, et cujuscunque Generis Actn 

 publica, inter Reges Angli<e et alias Principes (15 

 vols., folio, five more being added by Robert Sand- 

 erson). Rymer died in 1713. 



RYSBRACH, JOHN MICHAEL, a statuary, was 

 the son of a painter of Antwerp, in which city he 

 was born in 1694. He went to England early in 

 life, and derived considerable reputation and profit 

 from the exercise of his art, of which Westminster 

 abbey, and other cathedral churches, contain speci- 

 mens, among which may be mentioned the monu- 

 ments of Sir Isaac Newton and the duke of Marl- 

 borough ; while others, and especially busts, enrich 

 the best private collections, the heads of English 

 worthies at Stowe, and in the Hermitage at Rich- 

 mond, being of the number. His death took place 

 in 1770. 



RYSWICK; a village and castle situated in 

 South Holland, a league from the Hague, where 

 the peace of Ryswick was concluded September 

 20 and October 30, 1697. Louis XIV. had, in 

 1688, attacked the German empire in order to 

 anticipate the league of Augsburg (the object of 

 which was to set bounds to his conquests), and, at 

 the same time, to frustrate the designs of William 

 III., the stadtholder of Holland, to place himself 

 on the British throne. When William landed in 

 England (November 8, 1688), Louis declared war 

 against Holland. He had already conquered the 

 provinces on the Rhine, when the emperor Leopold 

 and the states-general concluded a league against 

 France (Vienna, May 12, 1689), to which Great 

 Britain, Spain, and Savoy acceded. The war was 

 carried on by France on land with great success. 

 Marshal Luxembourg conquered the Spanish Nether- 



