RYE. | NATURAL HISTORY. 267 
Five kinds of Rushes are written of: the candle Rush, 
the hard Rush and Fen-rush, the Bull-rush or Mat-rush, 
squinauth [or, camel’s hay]. 
Batman's addition to Bartholomew, loc. cit. 
{The references to the Rushes strewed on the floors of rooms 
are so numerous that there is no need to quote them. The 
rushes used were often sweet - scented ones, which are still 
found in some marshes in the Eastern Counties. Bulrushes 
were also used (Dekker’s “Bellman of London”), and hay 
(Hentzner’s “ Itinerary”), or flowers: “Strew all my bowers 
with flags and water-mints” (Lz/y’s ‘‘Woman in the Moon,” 
iii. 2). The Rushes must. have been frequently changed, for 
“all the ladies and gallants lie languishing upon the Rushes” 
(Ber Jonson, ‘* Cynthia’s Revels,” ii. 5), and they helped out 
conversation : ‘“‘If you had but so far gathered up your spirits 
to you, as to have taken up a rush, when you were out, and 
wagged it, thus, or cleansed your teeth with it” (2b¢d., iii. 1). 
As to the price, the cost was 3d. per burthen in 1559 (Ly¢e's 
“Eton College,” p. 169).] 
A Rusu dried and put into wine, if there be any water 
therein, draws it to it (the wine left alone, or together)— 
which is good and profitable for trying of wine.—Mizaldus. 
Lupton, “ Notable Things,” bk. iii. § 77. 
Rye. 
As You Like Iv, v. 3, 23. 
For your brown bread, or bread for your hind-servants, 
which is the coarsest bread for man’s use, you shall take of 
barley, two bushels, of pease, two pecks, of wheat or Rye, 
a peck, a peck of malt, etc. 
Gervase Markham, “English Housewife’s Skill in Baking,” 
p. 187 (1656). 
‘ 
Meats for bread are either simple or compound ; simple, 
as wheat, and Rye,—or compound, as Rye and wheat mixed 
together, or Rye, wheat and barley mixed together. 
Ibid., p. 185. 
