Sir John 1609-1642 Suckling

SUCKLING, SIR JOHN (1609-1642), English poet, was born at Whitton, in the parish of Twickenham, Middlesex, and baptized there on Feb. io, 1609. His father, Sir John Suckling (1569-1627), had been knighted by James I. and was successively master of requests, comptroller of the household and secretary of state. He amassed a considerable fortune, of which the poet became master at the age of eighteen. He was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1623, and was entered at Gray's Inn in 1627. He was intimate with Thomas Carew, Richard Lovelace, Thomas Nabbes and especially with John Hales and Sir William Davenant, who furnished John Aubrey with information about his friend. In 1628 he left London to travel in France and Italy, returning, however, before the autumn of 1630, when he was knighted. In 1631 he volunteered under Gustavus Adolphus and was present at the battle of Breitenfeld and in many sieges. He returned in May, 1632. He was handsome, rich and generous; the best cardplayer and best bowler at court; with a gift for verse. In 1634 he was beaten by Sir John Digby, a rival suitor of the daughter of Sir John Willoughby. Under the proclamation of 1632 against absentee landlordism, enforced by the Star Chamber, he retired to his estates in 1635. This leisure resulted in A Sessions of the Poets (ms. 1637) and a tract on Socinianism entitled An Account of Religion by Reason (pr. 1646). Suckling applied to his dramas the accessories of the masque. His Aglaura (pr. 5638) was produced at his own expense with elaborate scenery. Other plays are The Goblins (1638), Brennoralt, or the Discontented Colonel (1639) and The Sad One, left unfinished at the outbreak of the Civil War.

Suckling forthwith raised a troop of a hundred horse, at a cost of i12,000, and accompanied Charles on the Scottish expedi tion of 1639. He shared in the earl of Holland's retreat before Duns, and was ridiculed in an amusing ballad (pr. 1656), in Musarum deliciae. He was elected for Bramber (1640) to the

Long Parliament ; and wrote to Henry Jermyn, afterwards earl of St. Albans, advising the king to disconcert the opposition leaders by making more concessions than they asked for. In May 1641 he conspired to rescue Strafford from the Tower and to bring in French troops. The plot was exposed, and Suckling fled beyond the seas. Aubrey's statement that he took poison in May or June 1642 in fear of poverty is generally accepted. Suckling's minor pieces have at times exquisite felicity of ex pression. "Easy, natural Suckling," is Millamant's comment in Congreve's Way of the World (Act iv., sc. i.). Among the best known are the "Ballade upon a Wedding," on the marriage of Roger Boyle, afterwards earl of Orrery, and Lady Margaret Howard, "I prithee, send me back my heart," "Out upon it, I have loved three whole days together" and "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" from Aglaura. "A Sessions of the Poets," describing a meeting of the contemporary versifiers under the presidency of Apollo to decide who should wear the laurel wreath, is the prototype of many later satires.

A collection of Suckling's poems was first published in 1646 as

Frag menta aurea. The so-called Selections (1836), published by the Rev. Alfred Inigo Suckling, author of the History and Antiquities of Suffolk (1846-48), with Memoirs based on original authorities and a portrait after Van Dyck, is really a complete edition of his works, of which W. C. Hazlitt's edition (1874 ; revised ed., 1892) is little more than a reprint with some additions. The Poems and Songs of Sir John Suck ling, edited by John Gray and decorated with woodcut border and initials by Charles Ricketts, was artistically printed at the Ballantyne Press in 1896. In 1910 Suckling's works in prose and verse were edited by A. Hamilton Thompson. For anecdotes of Suckling's life see John Aubrey's Brief Lives (Clarendon Press ed., ii. 242).