swains
Compose Rush-rings, and Myrtle-berry chains,
And stuck with glorious King-cups in their bonnets,
Adorned with Laurel slip, chant true love sonnets."

But the uses of the Rush were not all bad. Newton, in 1587, said of the
Rush--"It is a round smooth shoote without joints or knots, having
within it a white substance or pith, which being drawn forth showeth
like long white, soft, gentle, and round thread, and serveth for many
purposes. Heerewith be made manie pretie imagined devises for Bride-ales
and other solemnities, as little baskets, hampers, frames, pitchers,
dishes, combs, brushes, stooles, chaires, purses with strings, girdles,
and manie such other pretie and curious and artificiall conceits, which
at such times many do take the paines to make and hang up in their
houses, as tokens of good will to the new married Bride; and after the
solemnities ended, to bestow abroad for Bride-gifts or presents." It was
this "white substance or pith" from which the Rush candle (No. 11) was
and still is made: a candle which in early days was probably the
universal candle, which, till within a few years, was the night candle
of every sick chamber, in which most of us can recollect it as a most
ghastly object as it used to stand, "stationed in a basin on the floor,
where it glimmered away like a gigantic lighthouse in a particularly
small piece of water" (Pickwick), till expelled by the night-lights, and
which is still made by Welsh labourers, and, I suppose, in Shakespeare's
time was the only candle used by the poor.

"If your influence be quite damm'd up
With black usurping mists, some gentle taper,
Though a Rush-candle from the wicker hole
Of some clay habitation, visit us
With thy long levell'd rule of streaming light."--_Comus._

But the chief use of Rushes in those days was to strew the floors of
houses and churches (Nos. 4, 7, 10, 12, and 14). This custom seems to
have been universal in all houses of any pretence. "William the son of
William of Alesbury holds three roods of land of the Lord the King in
Alesbury in Com. Buck by the service of finding straw for the bed of the
Lord the King, and to strew his chamber, and also of finding for the
King when he comes to Alesbury straw for his bed, and besides this Grass
or Rushes to make his chamber pleasant."--BLUNT'S _Tenures_. The custom
went on even to our own day in Norwich Cathedral, and the "picturesque
custom still ling