Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/136

Rh 118 R Y E R Y M and bark, and shipbuilding is carried on as well as fish- ing. There is a large market every alternate Wednesday, and considerable business in cattle, sheep, corn, wool, and hops is transacted. Rye is a quaint, compactly-built town perched upon the rock to which for centuries it was restricted, but in the course of the last half-century it has gradually extended itself over the northern slopes beyond the town wall. It is excellently drained, abundantly supplied with clear spring water, and very healthy. The church, said to be the largest parish church in Eng- land, is of very mixed architecture, chiefly Transitional, Norman, and Early English ; the nave and high chancel were judiciously restored in 1882, according to designs by the late Mr G. E. Street. Of the old fortifications there still remain portions of the town wall, much hidden by newer buildings, a strong quadrangular tower built by William of Ypres, earl of Kent, and lord warden in the time of Stephen, and now forming part of the police station, and a handsome gate with a round tower on each side, known as the Sandgate, at the entrance into Rye from the London road. Rye ceased in 1885 to be a parliamentary borough, but gives its name to the eastern division of the county. The population in 1881 was 4224. Of the early history of Rye little is known. In the mediaeval French chronicles it is always mentioned as "La Rie." Having been conferred upon the abbey of Fecamp by Edward the Confessor, it was taken back by King Henry III. into his own hands, "for the better defence of his realm," and received from that sovereign the full rights and privileges of a Cinque Port under the title of "Ancient Town." In consequence of the frequent incursions of the French, by whom it was sacked and burnt three times in the 14th century, it was fortified by order of Edward III. on the land- ward side, the steep precipitous sides of the rock affording ample protection towards the sea. In addition to the naval services n-nilcred by Rye as a Cinque Port under the Plantagenet and Tudor sovereigns, it was a principal port of communication with France in times of peace, for which reason saccessive bands of Huguenots fled thither between 1562 and 1685, many of whom settled at Rye and have left representatives now living. RYEZHITZA, a town of European Russia at the head of a district in the Vitebsk government, in 56 30' N. lat. and 27 21' E. long., 198 miles north-west from Vitebsk on the railway between St Petersburg and Warsaw, near the Ryezhitza, which falls into Lake Luban. Its popu- lation increased from 7306 (2902 Jews) in 1867 to about 9000 in 1881 ; but its importance is mainly histori- cal. The cathedral is a modern building (1846). Ryezhitza, or, as it is called in the Livouian chronicles, Roziten, was founded in 1285 by Wilhelm von Harburg to keep in subjec- tion the Lithuanians and Letts. The castle was continually the object of hostile attacks. In 1559 the Livouian order, exhausted by the war with Russia, gave it in pawn to Poland, and, though it was captured by the Russians in 1567 and 1577, and had its fortifications dismantled by the Swedes during the war of 1656- 1660, it continued Polish till 1772, when White Russia was united with the Russian empire. In early times Ryezhitza was a large and beautiful town. RYLAND, WILLIAM WYNNE (1738-1783), engraver, was born in London in July 1738, the son of an engraver and copper -plate printer. He studied under Ravenet, and in Paris under Boucher and J. P. le Bas. After spending five years on the Continent he returned to England, and having engraved portraits of George III. and Lord Bute after Ramsay (a commission declined by Strange), and a portrait of Queen Charlotte and the Princess Royal after Francis Cotes, R.A., he was appointed engraver to the king. In 1766 he became a member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, and he exhibited with them and in the Royal Academy. In his later life Ryland abandoned line- engraving, and introduced "chalk-engraving," in which the line is composed of stippled dots, a method by means of which he attained great excellence, and in which he transcribed Mortimer's King John Signing Magna Charta, and copied the drawings of the old masters and the works of Angelica Kauffman. lie traded largely in prints, but in consequence of his extravagant habits his affairs became involved ; he was convicted of forging bills upon the East India Company, and, after attempting to commit suicide, was executed at Tyburn on the 29th of August 1783. A short memoir of Ryland was published the year after his death. RYMER, THOMAS (1641-1713), historiographer royal, was the younger son of Ralph Rymer, lord of the manor of Brafferton in Yorkshire, described by Clarendon as " possessed of a good estate " and executed for his share in the " Presbyterian rising" of 1663. Thomas was probably born at Yafforth Hall early in 1641, and was educated at a private school kept by Thomas Smelt, a noted Royalist, with whom Rymer was " a great favourite," and " well known for his great critical skill in human learning, especially in poetry and history." 1 He was admitted as pensionarius minor at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, on April 29, 1658, but left the university without taking a degree. On May 2, 1666, he became a member of Gray's Inn, and was called to the bar on June 16, 1673. His first appearance in print was as translator of Cicero's Prince (1668), from the Latin treatise (1608) drawn up for Prince Henry. He also translated Rapin's Reflections on Aristotle's Treatise of Poesie (1674), and followed the principles there set forth in a tragedy in verse, licensed September 13, 1677, called Edgar, or the English Monarch, which was not, however, very successful. The printed editions of 1678, 1691, and 1693 belong to the same issue, with new title-pages. Rymer's views on the drama were again given to the world in the shape of a printed letter to Fleetwood Shep- heard, the friend of Prior, under the title of The Tragedies of the Last Age Considered (1678). To Ovid's Epistles Translated by Several Hands (1680), with preface by Dry- den, " Penelope to Ulysses " was contributed by Rymer, who was also one of the "hands" who Englished the Plutarch of 1683-86. The life of Nicias fell to his share. He furnished a preface to Whitelocke's Memorials of Eng- lish Affairs (1682), and wrote in 1681 A General Draug/tt and, Prospect of the Government of Europe, reprinted in 1689 and 1714 as Of the Antiquity, Power, and Decay of Parliaments, where, ignorant of his future dignity, the critic had the misfortune to observe, "You are not to expect truth from an historiographer royal." He con- tributed three pieces to the collection of Poems to the Memory of Edmund Waller (1688), afterwards reprinted in Dryden's Miscellany Poems, and is said to have written the Latin inscription on Waller's monument in Beaconsfield churchyard. He produced a congratulatory poem upon the arrival of Queen Mary in 1689. His next piece of author- ship was to translate the sixth elegy of the third book of Ovid's Tristia for Dryden's Miscellany Poems (1692, p. 148). On the death of Thomas Shadwell in 1692 Rymer received the appointment of historiographer royal, at a yearly salary of 200. Immediately afterwards appeared his Short View of Tragedy (1693), criticizing Shakespeare and Ben Jonson, which produced The Impartial Critick (1693) of Dennis, the epigram of Dryden. 2 and the judgment of Macaulay that Rymer was "the worst critic that ever lived." Within eight months of his official appointment Rymer was directed (August 26, 1693) to carry 1 See Hickes, Memoirs of John Kettlewell, 1718, pp. 10-14. 2 " The corruption of a poet is the generation of a critic " (Ded- of the Third Miscellany, in Works, 1821, xii. p. 49), which is much more pointed than Beaconsfield's reference to critics as " men who have failed in literature and art " (Lothair, chap. XXXT. ) or Balzac's sly hit at Merimee in similar terms. The poet's remarks on the Tragedies of the Last Age have been reprinted in his Works, 1821, xv. pp. 383-96, and in Johnson's Life of Dryden. See also Dryden's Works, i. 377, vi. 251, xi. 60, xiii. 20.