Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Cutwode, Thomas
CUTWODE, THOMAS (fl. 1599), poet, published in 1599 a very curious poem entitled ‘Caltha Poetarum: or The Bumble Bee,’ 8vo, consisting of 187 seven-line stanzas. Prefixed is a prose address ‘To the Conceited Poets of our Age,’ which is followed by some verses headed ‘G. S. in commendation of the author.’ The poem shows some skill of versification and archness of fancy; but as the veiled personal allusions are now unintelligible, it is tedious to read through the 187 stanzas. Occasionally Cutwode is somewhat licentious. His lapses from the path of modesty are not so serious as Warton represents (Hist. of Engl. Poetry, ed. Hazlitt, iv. 370); but the Archbishop of Canterbury disapproved of the poem, and in June 1599 ordered it to be committed to the flames, with Marston's ‘Pygmalion’ and Marlowe's translation of Ovid's ‘Epistles.’ In 1815 a reprint of ‘Caltha Poetarum’ was presented to the Roxburghe Club by Richard Heber.
[Ritson's Bibl. Poet.; Arber's Transcript, iii. 677; Collier's Bibl. Cat. i. 432.]