Though a cloud hangs over the birth and death of Thomas Dekker, and though the details of his personal career be obscured, yet through his pamphlets and plays he has supplied us with some of the most vivid existing pictures of the days in which he lived. We wander among the narrow streets of old London, beneath the gabled houses with their creaking signs; look in at the booth-like shops, and listen by day to the 'prentice call of "What d'ye lack?" or watch the mercers roll up their silks and velvets at nightfall and the goldsmiths put away their plate; we stroll beneath the Gothic arches of old St. Paul's, and see the gallants flaunt their cloaks; we float along the river, or pass beyond the city walls, in the days when the Moor-gate really led to moors, and when Fins-bury had its swampy fens; we visit the ordinaries, the taverns, the theatre; we behold the plague-stricken city, and watch the deadcart pass, and see the bodies "tumbled into their euerlasting lodgings (ten in one heape and twenty in another) as if all the roomes vpon earth had bin full;" we become familiar with the haunts of sin and vice, and may find ourselves with Dekker himself within the walls of one of those "thirteene strong houses of sorrow where the prisoner hath his heart wasting away." Dekker's homely pictures of this bygone life have all the realism of Dutch paintings; deficient as they are in composition and execution, we trace behind them a kindly human heart, like that of Steele or Goldsmith, which draws us to the writer despite evident faults of style and flaws of character.-MORLEY, HENRY AND GRIFFIN, W. HALL, 1895, English Writers, vol. XI, p. 290. Marston, the respectable country parson, who, with his coarseness and his savage force, makes a strange contrast to his friend Dekker the vagabond, who had such a wonderful lyric faculty, and wrote with so much humour, pathos, and tenderness.-FIELD, LILIAN F., 1898, An Introduction to the Study of the Renaissance, p.166. Sir John Suckling 1609-1642 Sir John Suckling (1609-42), poet, was born at Whitton in Middlesex, the son of a secretary of state to James I. In 1623 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1628 went on his travels, and served for some time under Gustavus Adolphus. He returned about 1632, became famous at court for his wit and prodigality, and in 1639 raised a troop of 100 horse to aid the king against the Scots. Suckling was returned to the Long Parliament, joined in the abortive plot to rescue Strafford from the Tower, and in more desperate plots still against the liberties of the kingdom, but his schemes being discovered fled to the Continent. Impoverished and disgraced, he almost certainly poisoned himself at Paris. The works of Suckling consist of four plays, "Aglaura, "The Goblins," "Brennoralt," and "The Sad One," now forgotten; a prose treatise, "An Account of Religion by Reason;" a few "Letters;" and a series of miscellaneous poems, beginning with "A Sessions of the Poets" (1637), which is happily descriptive of the author's contemporaries. But the fame of Suckling rests on his ballads and songs such as the "Ballad upon a Wedding" and "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?”’ See the Rev. A. Suckling's "Selections, with a Life" (1836), reproduced by W. C. Hazlitt (1874; new ed. 1893); also the Memoir prefixed to F. A. Stokes's edition (New York, 1885).-PATRICK AND GROOME, eds., 1897, Chambers's Biographical Dictionary, p. 891. PERSONAL Suckling next was called, but did not appear, Suckling, whose numbers could invite He was the greatest gallant of his time, and the greatest gamester, both for bowling and cards, so that no shopkeeper would trust him for 6d., as to-day, for instance, he might, by winning, be worth 200 li., the next day he might not be worth half so much, or perhaps be sometimes minus nihilo. Sir William [Davenant] (who was his intimate friend, and loved him intirely) would say that Sir John, when he was at his lowest ebbe in gameing, I meane when unfortunate, then would make himselfe most glorious in apparell, and sayd that it exalted his spirits, and that he had then best luck when he was most gallant, and his spirits were highest. He was of middle stature and slight strength, brisque round eie, reddish fac't and red nose (ill liver), his head not very big, his hayre a kind of sand colour; his beard turnd-up naturally, so that he had brisk and gracefull looke. He died a batchelour. Sir John Suckling -from Mr. William Beeston-invented the game of cribbidge.-AUBREY, JOHN, 1669-96, Brief Lives, ed. Clark, vol. II, pp. 240, 242, 245. He had so pregnant a Genius that he spoke Latin at Five Years Old, and writ it at Nine Years of Age. His Skill in His Skill in Languages, and Musick, was Remarkable; but above all his Poetry, took with all the People, whose Souls were polished by the Charms of the Muses: And tho' War did not so well agree with his Constitution; yet in his Travels he made a Campaign under the Famous Gustavus, where he was present at three Battles, five Sieges, and as many Skirmishes: and if his Valour was not so Remarkable, in the North in the beginning of the Wars; yet his Loyalty was conspicuous, by his Expence in the Troop of Horse, which he rais'd, whose Equipage, viz. Horses, Arms and Clothes, were provided all at his own Charge, and stood him in 12000 l.-LANGBAINE, GERARD, 1691, An Account of the English Dramatick Poets, p. 496. Sir John Suckling was an immoral man, as well as debauched. The story of the French cards was told me by the late Duke of Buckingham; and he had it from old Lady Dorset herself. That lady took a very odd pride in boasting of her familiarities with Sir John Suckling. She is the Mistress and Goddess in his poems; and several of those pieces were given by herself to the printer. This the Duke of Buckingham used to give as one instance of the fondness she had to let the world know how well they were acquainted.POPE, ALEXANDER, 1728-30, Spence's Anecdotes, ed. Singer, p. 2. Sir John Suckling, a poet of great vivacity, and some elegance, was one of the finest gentlemen of his time.-GRANGER, JAMES, 1769-1824, Biographical History of England, vol. III, p. 128. The active life of our poet was now drawing rapidly towards its closing scene. Time, as it rolled in its unceasing course, brought no prospect of a national reunion, while the interdict against his safety continued in full validity. Reduced, at length, in fortune, and dreading to encounter poverty, which his habits and temper were little calculated to endure— hurled from his rank in society-an alien, and perhaps friendless his energies at length gave way to the complicated wretchedness of his situation, and he contemplated an act which he had himself condemned in others. Purchasing poison of an apothecary at Paris, he produced death, says Aubrey, by violent fits of vomiting. Some writers, with great tenderness to his character, have attributed his end to other causes and dissimilar means; but, I regret to add, family tradition confirms the first and most revolting narration. Thus perished immaturely, and in a land of strangers, the accomplished subject of this memoir; marked indeed by early levity and indiscretions, but happily more distinguished by devoted loyalty and intellectual refinement. If he be charged with want of prudence in the direction of his great abilities to his own advancement, they were at least ever exerted in favour of the learned and the deserving. If his earlier years were stained by habits of intemperance and frivolity, he has amply redeemed himself by the exertions of his maturer age. To a kind and amiable temper he united a generous and a friendly disposition; while the proofs of his patriotism and loyalty have been so fully developed in the progress of this essay, that, with all his imperfections, he is entitled to rank with the most distinguished characters of his day. SUCKLING, ALFRED, 1836-74, ed., Suckling's Works. The delight of the Court and the darling of the Muses, Suckling was one of the sweetest poets, the most refined gentleman, and perhaps the wildest and most reckless cavalier of the age in which he lived.―JESSE, JOHN HENEAGE, 1839-57, Memoirs of the Court of England During the Reign of the Stuarts, Including the Protectorate, vol. II, p. 215. He comes among a herd of scented fops with careless natural grace, and an odour of morning flowers upon him. You know not which would have been most delighted with his compliments, the dairy maid or the duchess. He was thrown too early upon a town life; otherwise a serious passion for some estimable woman, which (to judge from his graver poetry) he was very capable of entertaining, might have been the salvation of him. As it was, he died early, and, it is said, not happily; but this may have been the report of envy or party-spirit; for he was a great loyalist. It is probable, however, that he excelled less as a partizan than as a poet and a man of fashion. He is said to have given a supper to the ladies of his acquaintance, the last course of which consisted of millinery and trinkets. The great Nelson's mother was a Suckling of the same stock, in Norfolk.---HUNT, LEIGH, 1846, Wit and Humour, p. 216. Considering the early age at which he passed away, and what he has left behind him in print, not to name his political exploits, it will be allowed, no doubt, that Suckling was a man of no ordinary genius, nor have we it in our power, we apprehend, to raise a better monument to him, than a faithful text of his authentic writings.-HAZLITT, W. CAREW, 1874, ed., Poems, Plays and Other Romances of Suckling, Introduction, vol. 1, p. vi. . The feverish life of Suckling never fulfilled its true issues. Expatriated and disgraced, his sun went down in a foreign land, ere almost it had reached its meridian. To the allurements of a court at first brilliant and trifling, then sensual and devilish, we owe in great measure the failure of Sucking's life, and the extinction of his fine genius. But, when all deductions have been made, there still remain substantial reasons for classing the poet honourably amongst the dis tinguished men of his age. SMITH, GEORGE BARNETT, 1878, Sir John Suckling, The Gentleman's Magazine, vol. 243, p. 439. No English poet has lived a life so public, so adventurous and so full of vicissitude as his. Nothing short of an irresistible bias towards the art of poetry could have induced so busy and so fortunate a man to write in verse at all. Beautiful and vigorous in body, educated in all the accomplishments that grace a gentleman, endowed from earliest youth with the prestige of a soldier and a popular courtier, his enormous wealth enabled him to indulge every whim that a fondness for what was splendid or eccentric in dress, architecture and pageantry could devise. Such a life could present no void which literary ambition could fill, and Suckling's scorn for poetic fame was well known to his contemporaries.-GOSSE, EDMUND, 1880, English Poets, ed. Ward, vol. II, p. 170. Sir John Suckling was a gay courtier, much addicted to gambling, like many others who, by the side of the grave decorum of Charles's domestic life, anticipated the loose profligacies of the Whitehall of Charles II. As a writer of sparkling verses he secured the admiration of his contemporaries, and has retained the admiration of later generations. His conversation was as easy and brilliant as his verse, and he readily made himself acceptable to the ladies of the Court, who thought it no shame to listen to the airy doctrine that constancy in married life was a fit object of scorn, and that modesty was but an empty name. Amongst men he was much respected. Once in his life he had thought of marrying a lady whose attractions were to be found in the weight of her purse. A rival, strong of arm, cudgelled him till he agreed to renounce all claims upon the golden prize. -GARDINER, SAMUEL R., 1883, History of England from the Accession of James I. to the Outbreak of the Civil War, vol. IX, p. 311. thou, whom Muses crowned with every gift, While yet a boy—tho' in achievement man And monarch-young in years yet ripe in fame, Tender and great, true poet, dauntless heart, As thou didst, half immortal. -DE TABLEY, LORD JOHN, 1893, On a Portrait of Sir John Suckling. |