acknowledgment, transferred Suckling's ideas, in several instances, from these plays to his own poetry.a The vivacity of Suckling's mind promised better success from his attempts in comedy: yet the Goblins, it must be confessed, possesses little merit The idea of the play is evidently borrowed from Shakspeare; and the same arguments may be advanced in defence of the machinery adopted in it, as have been so powerfully adduced by Dr. Johnson, in support of Shakspeare's employment of witches in Macbeth. A belief in the agency of witchcraft was still an universal notion in Suckling's time-nay, it had been rendered a fashionable illusion, by the publication of King James's work on demonology. The curious expression which occurs in this play "The Sedgly curse upon thee, And the great fiend ride through thee Booted and spurr'd, with a scythe on his neck," is explained in Ray's Proverbs, where we are told that it is a Staffordshire saying. In the second song in the third act is an extraordinary line "The prince of darkness is a gentleman." a" But, as when an authentic watch is shown, So in our very judgments." Epilogue to Aglaura. ""Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own." Pope's Essay on Criticism. "High characters, cries one, and he would see Things that ne'er were, nor are, nor e'er will be." Epilogue to the Goblins. "Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be.” Pope's Essay on Criticism. The Lady Juliana Barnes uses an expression very similar "Jesus was a gentleman." Dodsley has published the Goblins, with copious notes, in his collection of old plays. Brennoralt, I consider Suckling's best play and it might, with little alteration, be adapted to modern taste. The dialogue is more lively, and the plot less complicated and bloody, than in his other tragedies. It abounds in allusions to the existing state of public affairs, and has been thought to point in some places to his own situation. When he says, the court is "A most eternal place of low affronts, And then, as low submissions," the conduct and humiliation of Digby were, probably, in the author's recollection. In the beginning of the third act he introduces the king in conversation with Brennoralt, and his counsellors; which affords an opportunity of discussing the subjects then in agitation between Charles and the Scots. The passage is too long to be repeated in this place, particularly as it will be found in the body of this volume but it is worthy of an attentive perusal. The play contains many excellent strokes. There is a strong satire, in the first scene, on men whose lives have been spent uselessly to society. "Formal beards, Men, who have no other proof of their Long life; but, that they are old!" Villanor's idea in the first scene of the fourth act has been copied by Moore in his earlier poems. "Look babies again in our eyes." Brennoralt's reflections on the king's gifts and honours are touchingly expressed. "A princely gift, but, Sir, it comes too late! Like sunbeams on the blasted blossoms, do Suckling has not scrupled to introduce, without any acknowledgment, several entire lines of Shakspeare,— and is also convicted of having borrowed largely from Balzac's Letters. Brennoralt was first published under the title of the Discontented Colonel, in 1639, as a satire on the Scottish malcontents. b Suckling has also appeared before us on two occasions as a translator; and notwithstanding the just objections of Dr. Johnson to the style of literal translation pursued during the early part of the seventeenth century, Sir John's version of the little French ode, beginning "A quoy servent d'artifices," forms a marked and happy exception to the general usage it unites much freedom and grace with very great fidelity to the original, and leaves us to regret that more of the light ballads and odes of our neighbours had not engaged his attention. Suckling's works have gone through many editions, but are, notwithstanding, rather scarce at the present day. The following will, I believe, be found a correct list of the successive republications of his writings, and the contents of each volume. 1. FRAGMENTA AUREA. London, printed by Humphrey Moseley, 1646. 8vo. It contains his Poems and Letters, and "An Account of Religion by Reason," with a portrait. Idler, No. 69. 2. FRAGMENTA AUREA. London, Moseley, 1648. The contents are the same as in the previous edition, but the size is rather less: it has no portrait of the author. 3. Large 12mo. containing the Poems, &c. Account of Religion by Reason. London, Moseley, 1658. Letters to several Persons of Honour. Ibid. 1659. Letters to divers Eminent Personages. Ibid. 1650. His Plays of Aglaura, The Goblins, and Brennoralt. Ibid. 1658. His Last Remains. Ibid. 1659. 4. THE WORKS OF SIR JOHN SUCKLING.-Containing his Poems, Letters, and Plays. London, printed by Jacob Tonson, 1709. 8vo. with a portrait. 5. THE WORKS OF SIR JOHN SUCKLING.-Containing his Poems, Letters, and Plays. London, printed for Jacob Tonson, at Shakspeare's Head, over against Katharine Street in the Strand. 1719. 8vo. with a portrait. 6. THE WORKS OF SIR JOHN SUCKLING.-Containing his Poems, Letters, and Plays. No portrait is prefixed. 2 vols. 12mo. 1770. A LIST OF THE ENGRAVED PORTRAITS OF SIR JOHN SUCKLING. 1. A bust, engraved by Cross; painter unknown. 2. A portrait prefixed to his "Poems and Plays," 1646. 8vo. Painter uncertain; engraved by Marshall. 3. A portrait prefixed to his "Poems, Letters, and Plays," 1719. 8vo. Painted by Vandyke; engraved by Vander Gucht. 4. A second engraving by Vander Gucht, from a portrait in the editor's possession. 5. A portrait of the poet, as a child, with ruffles at the wrists. 6. A portrait, large folio, in the set of "Poets." Painted by Vandyke; engraved by Vertue. 1741. 7. A portrait, prefixed to the present edition of his Works. Painted by Vandyke; engraved by James Thomson. 1835. |