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 Crœsus 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