[This is one of the pieces which Isaac Reed did not retain in the edition of 1780, nor is it in that of 1825. Yet there is no apparent ground for its exclusion.
A piece bearing the same title as Rutter's was written by Sir W. Denny at a later date, and is printed from the original MS. in "Inedited Poetical Miscellanies," 1870.
It seems to be a hypothesis sufficiently plausible to justify a passing notice, in that one of the suppressed printed at the end of the "Private Memoirs of Sir Kinelm Digby," 1827, the intimacy of Digby with a royal personage is described in very warm terms and colours, and that Rutter, who was in Digby's family at one time, may have founded on what came to his ears the episode of Sylvia and Thyrsis in this production.]
[DODSLEY'S PREFACE.]
This author wrote in the reign of Charles the First. He lived with the Earl of Dorset, as tutor to his son, and translated, at the desire of his patron, the Cid of Corneille, a tragi-comedy, in two parts [1640-50, 8o]. It appears, from his dedication of this pastoral to Sir Kenelm Digby, that he lived also with that gentleman for some time, but in what capacity I cannot tell. The plainness and simplicity of this pastoral is commended by Thomas May, author of "The Heir" and "The Old Couple;" and also by Ben Jonson in the following lines—
"I have read
And weigh'd your play; untwisted every thread,
And know the woof and warp thereof; can tell
Where it runs round and even; where so well,
So soft, and smooth it handles, the whole piece,
As it were, spun by nature off the fleece."