or Library of the useful arts indicates that the average rushlight was 12 inches (30 cm) long and burned for 10 to 15 minutes. Gilbert White reported that a rushlight 28.5 inches (72 cm) in length burned for 57 minutes; he wrote, "these rushes give a good clear light." There was much variation in the quality of rushlights; a 19th-century writer observed that "one might very well flicker and splutter for an hour, whilst a second was just as likely to flame away in ten minutes." A differently made rushlight in which two strips of the rind were left on the rush before it was coated with tallow produced a dimmer light but burned much longer. White referred to these as "watchlights". Fixtures The burning rushlight was normally held by metal clips at an angle of about 45 degrees. If the rush is held vertically, it tends to have a dimmer flame. If held horizontally, it may burn too quickly. However, there were some devices designed to keep the burning rush in a vertical position, including nightlights made from cylinders of tin or sheet-iron perforated with holes that would allow the light to shine out. The rushlight holder was usually mounted on an iron tripod or a wooden block. Antique rushlight holders are now collectors' items. They were never mass-produced but were individually made by local craftsmen and blacksmiths. In literature and culture One of Aesop's Fables, known in English as "the farthing rushlight" or "the vain rushlight," describes a personified rushlight bragging that it is more brilliant than the sun, moon, and stars. The rushlight is then blown out by a slight breeze. The person who re-lights the rushlight advises it to be more humble. Some versions of the Greek myth of Prometheus mention that Prometheus brought fire to men in a rushlight. In Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, at the beginning of Act IV, Scene V, Katherina mentions a "rush-candle". Anne Brontë mentions a rushlight in the end of chapter XXXIII of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Her sister, Charlotte Brontë, twice describes the children at Lowood Institute dressing by rushlight in the early morning in Jane Eyre (once about a third of the way into chapter 5, and again at the beginning of chapter 6). Washington Irving mentions a "farthing rushlight" in the short story "The Boar's Head Tavern, Eastcheap", which is part of The Sketch