Winftanley's Lives of the Eng. lish poets.

66

Yet he was not fo devoted to the muses, or to the foftness and luxury of courts, not fo much "the delight of the court, and the darling of the mufes," as one fays of him, as to be wholly a ftranger to the camp. In his travels he made a campaign under the great Guftavus Adolphus, where he was prefent at three battles, five fieges, and several skirmifhes; and if his valour was not fo remarkable, fays mr. Langbaine, in the beginning of our civil wars, yet his loyalty was exceedingly fo: for after his return to his country, he raised a troop of horfe for the king's fervice entirely at his own charge, and fo richly and completely mounted, that it is faid to have stood him in 12000l. But these troops and their leader distinguished themselves only by their finery, for they did nothing for the king's fervice, which fir John laid very much to heart; and foon after this mifcarriage was feized with a fever, of which he died at twenty-eight years of

age. The advantages of birth, perfon, education, parts, and fortune, with which this gentleman fet out in the world, had raised the expectations of mankind to a prodigious height; and perhaps his dying so young was better for his fame, than if he had lived longer. He was a sprightly wit, and a courtly writer, as Dryden somewhere calls him; but certainly not a great genius, as fome have affected to represent him: a polite and eafy verfifier, but not a poet. Mr. Lloyd in his Memoirs of him fays, that "his poems are clean, fprightly, " and natural, his difcourfes full and convincing, his plays "well humoured and taking, his letters fragrant and spark"ling." He obferves farther, that "his thoughts were "not fo loofe as his expreffions, nor his life so vain as his "thoughts; and at the fame time allows for his youth and fanguine complexion, which he thinks a little more time "and experience would have rectified.”

His works confift of a few poems, a few letters, An account of religion by reason, a discourse upon occafion prefented to the earl of Dorfet, and four plays. There have been feveral editions of them; fome under the title of Fragmenta aurca, or a collection of all the imcomparable pieces, written by fir John Suckling; but that which we now make ufe of, carries the more moderate title of, The works of fir John Suckling, containing his poems, letters, and plays,

Lond.

}

Lond. 1709, in 8vo. To this edition are prefixed, a print of the author, and memoirs of his life; from which we have made this fhort extract.

Sueton. in

Neron. c.

SUETONIUS (CAIUS SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS) an ancient hiftorian, very excellent in the biographical way, was born a Roman about the beginning of the reign of Vef pafian, as may be collected from his own words in the life of Nero. His father was a man of no great extraction, yet 57. was preferred to the tribuneship of a legion, by the emperor Otho, whose fide he took against Vitellius. Our historian spent his first years probably at Rome; for he tells us, that In Domit. " he remembered, when he was a boy, to have seen an old man inspected in open court, and examined whether he "was circumcifed or not." When he was grown up, he betook himself to the bar; and the testimony of Pliny, which informs us that he did fo, informs us at the fame time, that he had not as yet freed himself from the fuperftitions of his times.

C. 12.

lib, i.

"You write me word," fays Pliny to him, "that Epift xvii. "a dream has made you afraid of mifcarrying in your cause, "and you want me to procure you a delay of a few days. "There will be fome difficulty in this, however I will cer"tainly try; for dreams, as Homer fays, procéed from Jove. "In the mean time," continues he, "you would do well "to confider, whether your dreams are literally fulfilled, or " whether they come true only by contraries." There was a long and strict friendship between these two writers, and it proved advantageous to Suetonius, for Pliny did him great fervices. He procured him a tribune's office; and afterwards, upon his refignation, tranferred it to his kinfman, at Suetonius's request. He obtained alfo for him the "jus "trium liberorum;" a favour feldom granted, and which Pliny had not obtained, if to his great intereft at court, he had not joined an earneft folicitation for it. He was then governor of Bithynia, under the empire of Trajan; and from thence wrote the following letter to that emperor. "I Epft xcvii. "have long fince, Sir, taken into an intimacy with me "Suetonius Tranquillus, a man of great integrity, honour, "and learning, whofe manners and ftudies are the fame "with my own; and the better I have known him, the

lib. x.

In vita
Adrian.

"more I have loved him. He has been but unhappy in his marriage, and the privileges of thofe, who have three "children, are upon feveral accounts neceffary. He begs "through me therefore, that your bounty will fupply, what

his ill fortune has denied him. I know, Sir, the high "value of the favour I afk; but I am afking of you, whose "indulgence to all my wifhes I have long experienced. "How defirous I am to obtain it, you will cafily conclude, "from my applying to you at this diftance; which I fhould "not have done, if it had been a matter of more indifference "to me." Suetonius advanced himfelf confiderably afterwards, for he was fecretary to the emperor Adrian; but he loft that place, for not paying a due refpect to the empress. Spartian, who relates this affair, expreffes himself thus: "Septicio claro præfect oprætorii, & Suetonio Tranquillo "epiftolarum magiftro, multifque aliis, quod apud Sabinam " uxorem, injuffu ejus, familiarius fe tunc egerant, quam "reverentia domus aulicæ poftulabat, fucceffores dedit." We quote this teftimony from the original, to note the error of thofe, who have concluded from it, that Suetonius's offence against the emperor was a love intrigue with his wife Sabina: whereas, the words do not fuggeft the leaft idea of gallantry; but only imply," that Suetonius, and fome "others, were turned out of their places by the emperor, "for behaving, without his leave, .with lefs ceremony to "the emprefs, than was confiftent with his own dignity and "that of his court." For, it feems, the emperor treated her with great contempt himself, on account of fome very ill qualitics fhe had, and permitted others alfo to do fo under certain limitations; which limitations, it is probable, these gentlemen exceeded.

We know nothing more of Suetonius, than as he is a writer. He wrote many books, none of which are come down to us, except his Hiftory of the first twelve emperors, and part of his Treatife concerning the illuftrious grammarians and rhetoricians; for he applied himself much to the ftudy of grammar and rhetoric, and many are of opinion that he taught them. Suidas afcribes to him several works, which concern that profeffion; and obferves farther, that he wrote a book about the Grecian games, two upon the

fhews

.

fhews of the Romans, two upon the laws and customs of Rome, one upon the life of Cicero, or upon his books De republica, a catalogue of the illuftrious men of Rome, and the eight books ftill extant of the Hiftory of the emperors. Many other pieces of his are cited by various authors; and the lives of Terence, Horace, Juvenal, Perfius, and Lucan, have usually gone under his name, and been printed at the end of his works, though it is not abfolutely certain, that they are his. His Hiftory of the emperors is an excellent work, and has always been admired by the best judges in polite literature. It is a continued feries of choice and curious facts, related fuccinctly without digreffions, reflections, and reasonings. There is in it a character of fincerity, which fhews very plainly, that the author feared and hoped for nothing, and that his pen was not directed by hatred or flattery. Suetonius, fays Politian "has given us evident In præf, ad "proofs of his diligence, veracity, and freedom. There is Suet. no room for any fufpicion of partiality or ill-will in his "books; nothing is advanced out of favour, nor fuppreffed "out of fear: the facts themfelves have engroffed his whole "attention, and he has confulted truth in the first place." -He was fo far from being influenced by any motives to detract from the truth, that, as Politian thinks, he forbore writing the lives of Nerva, Trajan, and Adrian, the emperors of his time, because he would not be tempted to speak well or ill of any one, out of any other principle than the love of truth. Some have blamed him for being fo particular in defcribing the lewd actions and horrid debaucheries of Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian, as if he meant to teach the greatest crimes, by his manner of relating them. But this, as Erafmus obferves, was all owing to his care and Erafm. Epift. xvi. fidelity as an historian; which, as fome body faid well enough, "made him write the lives of the Cæfars with the fame "freedom that they lived." And he is fo far from blaming him, that he he thinks his history more particularly useful on that very account: "to be a curb," fays he, "to wicked Erafm.præ "princes, who will not eafily be at reft, when they fee the "treatment they will have from impartial pofterity; and "confider, that their memory will hereafter be as execrable "as that of Caligula and Nero is at this day." We must

ad Sueton

&c.

In Neron. c. 16.

not close our account of this hiftorian without obferving, that he speaks very difrefpectfully of the Chriftians, calling them "genus hominum fuperftitionis novæ & maleficiæ; "a fort of people of a new and mifchievous fuperftition :" but this muft candidly be imputed to his ignorance, and want of better information concerning them and their doctrines.

This author has been thought worthy of the attention and pains of critics of the first clafs, and been very well publifhed more than once. The best editions are, Cum notis & numifmatibus a Carolo Patin, Bafil, 1675, 4to. Cum notis integris Ifaaci Cafauboni, Lævini Torrentii, Joannis Georgii Grævii, & felectis aliorum, Hage Comit. 1691, 4to. Cum notis variorum & Pitifci, 2 tom. L. Bat. 1692, 8vo. and Cum notis auctioribus, Leovard. 1714, 2 tom. 4to. in ufum Delphini, Paris, 1684, 4to. and cum notis Burmanni, in two volumes 4to.

SUEUR (EUSTACHE LE) one of the beft painters in his time, which the French nation had produced, was born at Paris in the year 1617, and studied the principles of his art under Simon Vouct, whom he infinitely furpaffed. It is remarkable, that Le Sueur was never out of France, and yet he carried his art to the highest degree of perfection. His works fhew a grand gufto of defign, which was formed upon antiquity, and after the beft Italian mafters. He invented with eafe, and his execution was always worthy of his defigns. He was ingenious, difcreet, and delicate in the choice of his objects. His attitudes are fimple and noble; his expreffions fine, fingular, and very well adapted to the fubject. His draperies are set after the gout of Raphael's laft works. Whatever was the reafon of it, he knew little of the local colours, or the claro obfcuro: but he was fo much mafter of the other parts of painting, that there was a great likelihood of his throwing off Vouet's manner entirely, had he lived longer, and had once relished that of the Venetian school; which he would certainly have imitated in his colouring, as he imitated the manner of the Roman school in his defigning, For immediately after Vouet's death, he perceived that his mafter had led him out of the way; and by confidering the antiques that were in France, and alfo the defigns and prints of the best Italian mafters, particularly

Raphaela