STICKLING, Sir one of the brilliant cavalier poets of the court of Charles I., was born at Whitton, in Middlesex, and baptized Feb. 10, 1608-9. His father, also a knight, held office as a secretary of state, and comptroller of the household, but died in 1027, when the poet was in his eighteenth year. The latter inherited large estates; and having completed his education at Trinity college, Cambridge, he went abroad„ and served for some time in Germany under Gustavus Adolphus. He returned about 1632, and was soon distinguished for his wit, gallantry, and lavish expenditure. To aid the king against the Scots li raised a troop of 100 horsemen, whom he clad in a rich and gaudy uniform of white and red, with plumes of red feathers in their caps. This loyal corps is said to have cost the poet about S.',12,000. They rode n.; but no sooner had the cavalry come within sight of the Scots' army at Dunse than they turned and fled without aiming a blow! This disgrace gave occasion to numerous lampoons, and to a clever though coarse ballad against Suckling's gay horsemen; but in reality they behaved no worse than the rest of the English army. Their loyal commander next joined in a scheme to rescue Strafford from the Tower, and this being discovered, he fled for safety to the continent. He died, while yet in the flower of his life and genius, in 1641 or 1642.
Various accounts are given of the circumstances attending his death, but the most pain ful of these, viz., that he poisoned himself in Paris, is confirmed by family tradition. See the memoir by the rev. Alfred Suckling (1836), prefixed to a volume of Selection. from the Works of Sir John Suckling. He had probably run through his fortune, and dreaded want, as well as despaired of the success of the royal arms. The works of Suckling consist of four plays, now utterly forgotten, a prose treatise entitled An Account of Religion by Reason; a collection of Letters, written in a stiff, artificial style; and a series of miscellaneous poems, beginning with A Session of the Poets, published in 1637, which Is original in style, and happily descriptive of the author's contemporaries. But the fame. of Suckling rests on his sons and ballads, which are inimitable for their ease, gayety, and pure poetic diction. His ballad of The Wedding is still unsurpassed, and one simile in his description of the bride— Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, stole in and out, As if they feared the light— • has had the honor of being copied by Herricktual Congreve.