Another curiosity in the rare catalogue popular just after Sir John's
death, was: 'A copy of two remonstrances brought over the river Stix in
Caron's ferry-boate, by the ghost of Sir John Suckling.'
Every thing subsequent to his arrival in France is involved in hopeless
obscurity, but the conjecture is pretty well founded that his death
occurred some time during that same year. One account says that he
poisoned himself at Paris. A more popular story is from letters in Lord
Oxford's collection, and is given both by Spence and by Oldys. Sir John
arrived late at night in Calais. In the morning, he found that his
servant had run away with his money and papers. He called for a horse,
and on drawing on his boot, felt a sharp pain, but making nothing of it
in his hurry, he mounted and drove off in hot pursuit. The dishonest
valet was apprehended, and the property recovered. Then he complained,
the tale goes on to say, of pain in one of his feet; his boot was found
to be full of blood. The servant had placed a nail in his master's boot,
which had been driven into the flesh. He fainted from loss of blood,
fell into a violent fever, and died in a few days. This, at least, is
believed to be certain: that he perished in early manhood--almost before
time was given him to repent of the follies of youth--in miserable
exile from the land of his birth and kindred.
Suckling's literary remains, as we have already stated, consist of
poems, letters, and dramas. These last-named productions were four in
number. _Aglaura_, which was _presented at the Private House in
Blackfriars by his Majesty's Servants_, is a tragedy, the scene of which
is laid in Persia. This play was brought upon the stage in a style of
princely magnificence. The dresses were of rich material, profusely
ornamented with gold and silver, the kind indulgence of the audience,
for once, not being asked to attribute an extraordinary value to
professional tinsel. The author is said to have laid out four hundred
pounds for this occasion. _Brennoralt_, also a tragedy, was first
published under the title of _The Discontented Colonel_, in 1639, as a
satire on the Scottish insurgents. _The Goblins_, a comedy in five acts,
is enlivened by the presence of a motley crew of devils, clowns,
wenches, and fiddlers; and an unfinished piece, entitled _The Sad One_,
may also be classed as a tragedy, as it opens briskly with a 'murder
within' in the very first scene, which undoubtedly would have culminated
in wholesale horrors had the author gone on and completed the play.
We will not stop for any minute examination of these dramas. Suffice it
to say, that they are devoid of interest at the present day; and from
what we have been able to read of them, we question whether the success
that is said to have attended their private representation was other
than mere compliment. Unfortunately for their dramatic unity, the author
is impatient of the restraint which a plot imposes, and the dialogue, in
consequence, rambles off hither and thither into passages as foreign to
the subject-matter as they are tame and spiritless in expression. There
are kings and princes, but they utter very commonplace remarks; and an
uncommonly liberal amount of bloodshed and stage-machinery contribute to
startling incidents, but they fail to redeem the play from a tiresome
monotony.
In the prologues, we find the author more at home:
'Then, gentlemen, be thrifty--save your dooms
For the next man or the next play that comes;
For smiles are nothing where men do not care,
And frowns are little where they need not fear.'
_Aglaura: Prologue to the Court._
The following lines occur in the epilogue to the same play:
'But as, when an authentic watch is shown,
Each man winds up and rectifies his own,
So, in our very judgments,' etc.
The reader will readily call to mind the oft-quoted couplet in Pope's
Essay on Criticism:
''Tis with our judgments as our watches: none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.'
Writing prefaces, it seems, has never been a popular task with
book-makers, and playwrights have a no less weighty burden of complaint:
'Now, deuce take him that first good prologue writ:
He left a kind of rent-charge upon wit,
Which, if succeeding poets fail to pay,
They forfeit all they're worth, and that's their play.'
_Prologue to The Goblins._
His apology for the present work is ingenious:
'The richness of the ground is gone and spent.
Men's brains grow barren, and you raise the rent.'
_Ibid._
A collection of about thirty letters are addressed, for the most part,
to the fair sex, and sparkle with wit and gallantry. The taste that is
displayed in them is elegant, and the style, as rapid and flowing as
correspondence need be--_præterea nihil_. When you have perused them,
you find that nothing substantial has been said. But Suckling, with
pains, might have risen to superior rank as a prose writer. This is
evident from _An Account of Religion by Reason_, a _brochure_ presented
to the Earl of Dorset, wherein his perspicuous style appears to good
advantage, joined with well-digested thought and argument.
But it is Suckling's poems that have been best known and most admired.
The school that flourished in this age, and devoted its muse to gay and
amorous poetry, was but a natural reaction from the stern, harsh views
of the Puritan, who despised and condemned _belles lettres_ as the
wickedness of sin and folly. Suckling's poems are few in number, and,
with rare exceptions, are all brief. The most lengthy is the _Sessions
of the Poets_, a satire upon the poets of his day, from rare Ben Jonson,
with Carew and Davenant, down to those of less note--
'Selwin and Walter, and Bartlett both the brothers,
Jack Vaughan, and Porter, and divers others.'
The versification is defective, but the satire is piquant, and no doubt
discriminating and just. At any rate, what the poet says of himself hits
the truth nearer than confessions commonly do:
'Suckling next was called, but did not appear;
But straight one whispered Apollo i' the ear,
That of all men living he cared not for't--
He loved not the muses so well as his sport;
And prized black eyes, or a lucky hit
At bowls, above all the trophies of wit.'
In Suckling's love-songs we discover the brilliancy of Sedley, the
_abandon_ of Rochester, (though hardly carried to so scandalous an
extreme) and a strength and fervor which, with care for the minor
matters of versification and melody, might have equaled or even
surpassed the best strains of Herrick. In a complaint that his mistress
will not return her heart for his that she has stolen, he says:
'I prithee send me back my heart,
Since I can not have thine;
For if from yours you will not part,
Why, then, shouldst thou have mine?
'Yet, now I think on't, let it lie;
To find it were in vain:
For thou'st a thief in either eye
Would steal it back again.'
The following, which has always been a favorite, was originally sung by
Orsames in _Aglaura_, who figures in the _dramatis personæ_ as an
'anti-Platonic young lord':
'Why so pale and wan, fond lover?
Prithee, why so pale?
Will, when looking well can't move her,
Looking ill prevail?
Prithee, why so pale?
'Why so dull and mute, young sinner?
Prithee, why so mute?
Will, when speaking well can't win her,
Saying nothing do't?
Prithee, why so mute?
'Quit, quit, for shame; this will not move,
This can not take her;
If of herself she will not love,
Nothing can make her--
The devil take her!'
We are tempted to add still another, which, to our taste, is the best of
his songs. A faulty versification deserves censure in all of them:
'Hast thou seen the down in the air,
When wanton blasts have tossed it?
Or the ship on the sea,
When ruder winds have crossed it?
Hast thou marked the crocodile's weeping,
Or the fox's sleeping?
Or hast thou viewed the peacock in his pride,
Or the dove by his bride,
When he courts her for his lechery?
Oh! so fickle, oh! so vain, oh! so false, so false is she!'
Love has been compared to a variety of objects, all of them with more or
less aptness. When some one likened it to a potato, because it 'shoots
from the eyes,' was it not Byron who was wicked enough to add, 'and
because it becomes all the less by pairing'? One wretched swain tells us
that he finds it to be
'----a dizziness,
That will not let an honest man go about his business.'
But no similitude can be more striking or more lasting than that of love
to a state of debt. So long as human nature continues materially the
same, these words, of four letters each, will express sensations pretty
nearly identical. The ease with which a poor creature falls into one or
the other of these snares, is all the more remarkable from the
difficulty which he is sure to encounter in his attempts at getting out.
Besides, is not love sometimes a real debit and credit account? But, not
to pursue the interesting inquiry further, we submit that there is good
sense, as well as good poetry, (does the latter always insure the
presence of the former?) in the lines we quote, which Sir John has
labeled _Love and Debt alike Troublesome_:
'This one request I make to him that sits the clouds above:
That I were freely out of debt, as I am out of love;
Then for to dance, to drink, and sing, I should be very willing--
I should not owe one lass a kiss, nor ne'er a knave a shilling.
'Tis only being in love and debt that breaks us of our rest,
And he that is quite out of both, of all the world is blest;
He sees the golden age wherein all things were free and common,
He eats, he drinks, he takes his rest, he fears no man nor woman.
Though Croesus compassed great wealth, yet he still craved more;
He was as needy a beggar still as goes from door to door.
Though Ovid was a merry man, love ever kept him sad;
He was as far from happiness as one that is stark mad.
Our merchant, he in goods is rich, and full of gold and treasure;
But when he thinks upon his debts, that thought destroys his pleasure.
Our courtier thinks that he's preferred, whom every man envies;
When love so rumbles in his pate, no sleep comes in his eyes.
Our gallant's case is worst of all--he lies so just betwixt them:
For he's in love, and he's in debt, and knows not which most vex him!'
The _Metamorphose_ is forcible, perhaps it has more force and wit than
elegance. The occasion may be where Sir John has for once shown himself
a 'constant lover':
'The little boy, to show his might and power,
Turned Io to a cow, Narcissus to a flower;
Transformed Apollo to a homely swain,
And Jove himself into a golden rain.
These shapes were tolerable; but by the mass,
He's metamorphosed me into an ass!'
There is no hesitancy in pronouncing which of Suckling's poetic pieces
should be called the best. It is the _Ballad upon a Wedding_. For ease
and jocoseness of description it stands almost unapproachable. Of
course, many other such productions may show equal fidelity to nature;
and there is a small class of poems which may boast a vein of the same
sparkling humor; but it would be difficult--we were ready to say
impossible--to cite another instance of so exquisite a commingling of
these two elements.
It requires a master-hand, it must be remembered, to harmonize these
touches of playful fancy with what the poet is obliged to recognize as
facts in nature. A tyro in the art is likely to transcend nature and
alter a little things as he finds them, when he wishes to indulge in
sportive recreation. Something well out of the common course must be
laid hold on to excite that pleasant feeling of surprise which lies at
the foundation of wit, if not of humor. Every one knows how much easier
it is to call forth mirth by caricature than by simple truth; nor need
it be added that while the former leaves but a momentary impression, the
latter abides longer and seldom tires. Broad farce is rewarded by the
tremendous applause of the gallery, but the pit and boxes confess to a
deal more gratification in the quiet humor of an old comedy. This ballad
displays all the vivacity and humor of light comedy, though we miss the
virtue-inculcating moral at the close. We fear that we have already
trespassed too far over the limits of a magazine article. We append only
a part of this _chef d'oeuvre:_
'I tell thee, Dick, where I have been,
Where I the rarest sights have seen;
Oh! things without compare!
Such sights again can not be found
In any place on English ground,
Be it at wake or fair.
'At Charing Cross, hard by the way
Where we (thou know'st) do sell our hay,
There is a house with stairs;
And there did I see coming down
Such folk as are not in our town,
Forty at least, in pairs.
* * * * *
'The maid, and thereby hangs a tale,
For such a maid no Whitsun'-ale
Could ever yet produce:
No grape that's kindly ripe could be
So round, so plump, so soft as she,
Nor half so full of juice.
* * * * *
'Her feet beneath her petticoat,
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they feared the light:
But oh! she dances such a way!
No sun upon an Easter-day
Is half so fine a sight.
* * * * *
'Her cheeks, so rare a white was on,
No daisy makes comparison;
Who sees them is undone;
For streaks of red were mingled there.
Such as are on a Catherine pear,
The side that's next the sun.
'Her lips were red; and one was thin,
Compared to that was next her chin,
Some bee had stung it newly;
But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face,
I durst no more upon them gaze,
Than on the sun in July.
'Her mouth so small when she doth speak,
Thou'dst swear her teeth her words did break,
That they might passage get;
But she so handled still the matter,
They came as good as ours, or better,
And are not spent a whit.
* * * * *
'Passion, O me! how I run on;
There's that that would be thought upon,
I trow, beside the bride:
The business of the kitchen's great,
For it is fit that men should eat;
Nor was it there denied.
* * * * *
'Now hats fly off, and youths carouse;
Healths first go round, and then the house,
The bride's came thick and thick;
And when 'twas named another's health,
Perhaps he made it hers by stealth;
And who could help it, Dick?
'O' th' sudden up they rise and dance;
Then sit again and sigh and glance;
Then dance again and kiss.
Thus sev'ral ways the time did pass,
Till every woman wished her place,
And every man wished his.
'By this time all were stolen aside
To counsel and undress the bride;
But that he must not know--
But yet 'twas thought he guessed her mind,
And did not mean to stay behind
Above an hour or so.'
What can be finer than the verse commencing, 'Her feet beneath her
petticoat,' or that which follows: 'Her cheeks,' etc.? That Suckling
could write like this, proves that there was in him the dawning of no
ordinary genius. He challenges our admiration, not so much for what he
has done, as for what he might have done, had his life been spared. Or
we should say, rather, what he might have done had he devoted half as
much of the life that was granted him to literary labors, as he did to
pleasure and dissipation.