Of forests and inchantments drear, Not trickt and flounct as she was wont But cherchef'd in a comely cloud, Where the rude ax with heaved stroke And as I wake, sweet music breathe As In service high, and anthems cleer, may And bring all Heav'n before mine eyes. ON HIS BLINDNESS. WHEN I Consider how my light is spent Ere half my days in this dark world and wide, I fondly ask? but patience to prevent That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need Either man's work or his own gifts; who best Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best: his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o're land and ocean without rest; SIR JOHN SUCKLING was born in the year 1609, at Witham, in Middlesex, the then residence of his father, who had been Secretary of State to James the First, and was Comptroller of the Household in the memorable reign which succeeded. Marvellous stories are told of Sir John's quickness and sagacity in youth; and it is very certain that while he could scarcely have passed the age of fifteen, he had been already looking out upon the world with the eye of a wit and a scholar. Before he was twenty he had visited the greater portion of civilized Europe, and fought under Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, a campaign of three battles, five sieges, and several skirmishes. On his return to England, he flung himself at once into the easy, careless, and affected life of a gallant and a fine gentleman, most active when he seemed least so, and never with a lighter smile upon his face than when hazarding his safety in some public intrigue. The truth was, as we believe, that the tendency of Suckling's nature inclined to the serious, and that the greater part of the business of his life was an attempt to conceal this. One such affectation begets a thousand- and his career is, accordingly, a suecession of strange contrasts, a brilliant game at cross purposes. His love of magnificence we take to be purely referable to the limited extent of his patrimony. That he might appear at one moment of his existence as rich as a prince in power, he was quite content to pass the next as poor as a prince in poverty. No matter what his purpose was, a grandeur of style accompanied, if it did not conceal it. When Charles the First summoned his friends to attend him with troops, Sir John Suckling came with a hundred handsome horsemen "the lords of holiday," but unfit for graver business. As his life drew near its close, however, this mask seems to have fallen from it. In his later years we find him labouring for the king's cause with a manly earnestness of purpose, with the utmost disregard of danger, and with so much effect, as to move against himself the wrath of the House of Commons. He was obliged to fly to France. As he slept at an inn on his way to Paris, his servant robbed him of a casket of gold and jewels; and to provide against the chance of his master's hot pursuit, stuck into one of his boots the blade of a penknife. He had anticipated the result with fatal precision. Sir John awoke, discovered his loss, leaped up, pulled on his boot in passionate haste, and received a mortal wound. He died on the 7th of May, 1641. Aubrey describes his person as of slight make, and his face as discoloured with ill-living. He had, it seems, a lively round eye, a head not very big, and hair of a kind of sand colour. His beard, Aubrey adds, turned up naturally, so that he had a brisk and graceful look. The poetry of Sir John Suckling partakes of the character of his life. It would appear, in most respects, the very reverse of romantic; but this appearance is any thing but real. In his poetry, as in his life, he reached the very highest perfection in the art of withdrawing attention from his object, by fixing it on his manner. His style must always be placed between the laughing and the grave, the light and the cordial. The very poems, which, on examination, will be found to have the ground-work of as perfect a faith in nature as the greatest works of the age that had immediately preceded, flutter forth with a town air, and as mere careless trifles. Thoughts of a deep and painful kind, until they are examined closely, will strike on the reader of the poetry of Suckling, as the merest superficial remarks. Sir John Suckling was, in fact, the connecting link between the poetry of Elizabeth and that of Charles the Second. He would have led forth a new race of poets, but for the Puritanism that started up in England, to be driven back, with an unfortunate but most natural rebound, into profligate licentiousness. As the latter declined, it is curious to observe how poetry again came round to his peculiar style. For his is the origin, it is clear, of that of Prior and of Gay. The songs in "The Beggar's Opera" might have been written by Sir John Suckling. They have all his happy negligence, yet exquisite beauty of versification; his artificial sensibility; his true luxurious richness; his voluptuous delicacy of sentiment. They have the graver purpose too, which runs in an under-current through nearly every thing he wrote, and which breaks out more openly in his tragedies. As where he calls the court, in one of them, "A most eternal place of low affronts, And then as low submissions." SUCKLING. SONG. 'Tis now, since I sate down before That foolish fort, a heart, (Time strangely spent) a year and more, And still I did my part: Made my approaches, from her hand Unto her lip did rise, The language of her eyes. Proceeded on with no lesse art, I thought to undermine the heart When this did nothing, I brought down A thousand thousand to the town, I then resolv'd to starve the place To draw her out, and from her strength, And brought myself to lie at length When I had done what man could do, And smil'd at all was done. I sent to know from whence and where A spie inform'd, honour was there, And did command in chief. March, march, (quoth I) the word straight give, Let's lose no time, but leave her; That giant upon ayre will live, And hold it out for ever. To such a place our camp remove I hate a fool that starves her love SONG. WHY SO pale and wan, fond lover? Will, when looking well can't move her, Prethee why so pale? Why so dull and mute, young sinner? |