| Clown. | Let me see; what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar, five pound of Currants, Rice——What will this sister of mine do with Rice?[242:1] | | Winter's Tale, act iv, sc. 3 (38). | Shakespeare may have had no more acquaintance with Rice than his knowledge of the imported grain, which seems to have been long ago introduced into England, for in a Nominale of the fifteenth century we have "Hoc risi, indeclinabile, Ryse." And in the "Promptorium Parvulorum," "Ryce, frute. Risia, vel risi, n. indecl. secundum quosdam, vel risium, vel risorum granum (rizi vel granum Indicum)." Turner was acquainted with it: "Ryse groweth plentuously in watery myddowes between Myllane and Pavia."[242:2] And Shakespeare may have seen the plant, for Gerard grew it in his London garden, though "the floure did not show itselfe by reason of the injurie of our unseasonable yeare 1596." It is a native of Africa, and was soon transferred to Europe as a nourishing and wholesome grain, especially for invalids—"sume hoc ptisanarium oryzÆ," says the doctor to his patient in Horace, and it is mentioned both by Dioscorides and Theophrastus. It has been occasionally grown in England as a curiosity, but seldom comes to any perfection out-of-doors, as it requires a mixture of moisture and heat that we cannot easily give it. There are said to be species in the North of China growing in dry places, which would perhaps be hardy in England and easier of cultivation, but I am not aware that they have ever been introduced.
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