INCIPIT JOHANNES SUTCLIN.

Whether I thee should either praise or pitty,
My senses at a great dilemma are:

For when I thinke how thou hast travail'd farre,
Can'st Greeke and Latin speake, art curteous, witty;
I thee in these, and, thee for them, commend ;

But, when I thinke, how thou, false friends to keepe,
Dost weare thy body, and, dost leese thy sleepe,

I thee, then, pitty, and doe discommend.

Thy feete have gone a painful pilgrimage,

Thou many nights dost wrong thy hands and eyes,

In writing of thy long apologies;

Thy tongue is, all the day, thy restlesse page.

For shame, intreate them better; I this

crave,

So they more ease, and, thou more wit shal't have.

Sir John's brother, Charles Suckling, of Woodton, in a MS. now before me, thus draws his portrait : "He was a man of grave deportement, and very comely person; of a fair complexion, with good features and flaxen haire."

Of the early history of the subject of our narrative, very little is known: nor, if it were ascertained, can it be supposed much worth recording. It would be folly, therefore, to supply, by crude conjecture, the channels of authentic information; and equally absurd to dwell on the relation of that precocious intellect, which Langbaine has assigned him. A return, we are gravely informed, made for the injustice of nature, which had delayed the period of his birth two months beyond the usual term of gestation.

An event, however, of real importance to the interests. of childhood, occurred to our poet at the tender age of

five years. His mother died at Norwich on the 28th of October, 1613," in the thirty-fifth year of her age. Whether deserving of the encomium of Aubrey, or notshe was certainly a lady endued with many virtues, and tenderly beloved by her husband.

A splendid tomb, rich in statuary, and allegorical sculpture, erected in the church of St. Andrew in that city, bears an inscription to her memory; wherein her worth is recorded, in terms more modest than is customary in epitaphs of that day. Amongst her other qualifications, as if in corroboration of Aubrey's statement, her mental accomplishments are alluded to, in direct terms.

Thou wert so good, so chast, so wise, so true."

Her husband entertained the same estimation of her worth, to the last period of his life; for, in his will, dated but shortly before his decease, her portrait is singled out from other pictures which he possessed, and thus affectionately bequeathed:

"Item. I give to my loving brother in lawe, the Earl of Middlesex, my picture of my late dear wife, hanginge in my country house, amongst other pictures, in the little roome next the great hall; for the love he bare to my late deare wife, his most lovinge sister."

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b This is given by most of Suckling's biographers, as the year of his birth-they had not paid attention to chronological facts.

This lady had issue two sons- - John the eldest - the subject of the present memoir; and Lionel, who died young, and a bachelor; and four daughters. In the church of Pangbourne, in Berkshire, is a monument erected to the memories of three of these ladies, thus inscribed :

"Within a vault, under the marble stones hereunto adjoining, resteth the bodyes of three sisters: Martha, Ann, and Mary; the daughters of the Right Honourable Sir John Suckling, of Whitton in the county of Middlesex, Knight - who died Controuler of the Householde, and one of the most honourable Prive Councell, unto Kinge Charles the first- - Martha was first maryed unto Sir George Sowthcott, of Shillingford, in the county of Devon, Knight; and dyed the wife of William Clagett, of Isleworth, in the county of Middlesex, Esquire. She dyed at the

Soon after the death of his mother, Suckling was removed from his father's care, and placed at a public school; though some uncertainty prevails as to the precise source of his earlier learning. If Aubrey can be relied on and his statements of dates and facts connected with our poet are frequently very inaccurate he was received at Westminster; but I have sought in vain for a confirmation of this assertion. The records of that establishment, which relate to its scholars, reach no higher than the middle of the last century, and it is certainly known that he was not admitted on the foundation. Nor are the presages of his genius better preserved though so much celebrated by contemporary writers a subject of greater regret: for the earliest indications of poetical talent are always worthy of record, as they show how far art and study may improve a spirit which is the inspiration of nature alone.

In 1623, Suckling was removed to Cambridge, and matriculated at Trinity College. He is entered there as John Suckling, junior -an epithet well merited, if we consider the date of his birth-though he was far from being so young as Davenant relates, who says, he proceeded to Cambridge in his eleventh year -- a statement well suited to accompany the assertion of Langbaine, that he spoke Latin at five, and writ it at nine."

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Bathe, the 29th of June, 1661.-Anne was marryed unto Sir John Davis; sonne of Sir John Davis; both Lords of this mannor, and dyed the 24th of July, 1659.— Mary Sucklinge dyed a virgine, the 17th of October, 1658." Elizabeth, the youngest daughter, died at an early age, and also unmarried.

d In a letter, dated July 25th, 1678, "G. North, the master; and the Seniors of Trinity College in Cambridge," request a donation from Robert Suckling, Esq. of Woodton, (cousin to the poet) to assist them in erecting the library of that establishment, in Nevil's court. In this letter, the college is termed, "a kind of parent" towards his family, which had "always carried a great respect to their memory." At the back of the letter is the following endorsement—" May 19th, 1679. My Ffather sent by Mr. Brown, curate of Wootton, for me and himselfe, toward ye building herein specified, £120."— MS. pen. ed.

A little attention, however, to chronological facts will overset this marvellous tale, and reduce its exuberance to the limits of credibility.

When a short sketch of the poet's life was hastily drawn up, by the first collectors of his writings, the date of his birth was inaccurately fixed in 1613: which event has already been shown to have occurred five years earlier. Thus, his wonderful ripeness of intellect vanishes; for, in place of speaking Latin at five, and writing it at nine; these acquirements were, less marvellously, displayed at the ages of ten and fourteen.

By the same method of correcting the chronology of Suckling's earlier days, he must have been sixteen, and not eleven years old, as stated by Davenant, when he first repaired to the university of Cambridge. Though Davenant was "his intimate friend, and loved him intirely," yet his authority, on this subject, is of no great weight; as their acquaintance, though it afterwards ripened into friendship, was not formed till a much later period of their lives, when the similarity of their tastes and opinions had drawn them together.-Davenant, who was the son of a vintner at Oxford, where he was born and educated, could not have been early associated with a youth of Suckling's connexions, who was studying at a different university.

Although much credit is given to the subject of our narrative, for his eminent attainments in the arts and sciences, I should conclude with Dodsley, that he was a polite, rather than a deep scholar. Music, languages, and poetry, were the accomplishments he most cultivated, and in which he was most desirous to excel : nor is it agreeable to the acknowledged vivacity of his constitution, to imagine that more abstruse or graver subjects could very long engage his attention. Still, his

attainments must have been considerable, for we are told that he early distinguished himself by the strength of his genius and capacity, which required less pains and application in him, than it did in others, to make himself master of whatever subject he pursued."

His facility in acquiring languages, is also noticed as having been very remarkable. But, while he was thus pursuing his academical studies, he received an irreparable blow in the death of his father. The Knight had contracted a second marriage, with a daughter of a Mr. Reeve, of Bury Saint Edmund's: an alliance which proved, in its ultimate effects, unfortunate to the interests of the poet; as much variance, regarding family property, arose at the father's decease.

He died on the 27th of March, 1627, in the 58th year of his age: an event which the constitutional gaiety of the son rendered peculiarly untoward; as the gravity of the father's character, which was remarkable, would have operated essentially in diverting him from many youthful indiscretions, into which he fell, from this early exposure to the allurements of a gay and luxurious court, to which his birth and connexions had already introduced him.

That the father entertained a like view of his situation, and its consequent perils, seems almost certain; for his will debars him from entering upon the possession of his estates, till he had completed his twenty-fifth year.

Our poet's father was buried by the side of his first wife, in the church of St. Andrew, at Norwich. The poor of that city, with those of Twickenham and Whitton, share his bounties to the present hour: and, in the former place, annual sermons are preached, which his piety desired should, like his charities, be perpetual. The subject of one of these lectures shows his strong