Sir John Suckling, the son of a wealthy man, who held various offices at Court, was born at Whitton in 1609 (?). Not much is known of his education, but in town he was one of the tribe of Ben Jonson, wits and courtiers, such as Davenant, Carew, and Endymion Porter. His "Session of the Poets" is inelegant banter of his friends. His plays "Aglaura," "The Goblins," "Brennoralt," are very decadent in style, and a man must have a strong passion for the drama who can read them "for human pleasure". In Charles's expedition against the Scottish Covenanters, in 1639, each army occupied itself in observation, Charles at Berwick, Leslie at Duns Law. The commanders on both sides were dispirited, and if a troop of horse, equipped by Suckling at great expense, ran away, it was probably from Kelso, where a small Royalist command was driven in. We know nothing with certainty, but derisive ballads were made against the poet's courage, though there never was a braver man than Colonel Gardiner, whose dragoons on every occasion used their spurs, in 1745. Suckling died in Paris in 1642; various tales are told of the cause of his decease. Suckling is the typical jolly, audacious, amorous, now constant, now amusingly volatile Cavalier poet. His verses are well made but seldom so well as Carew's; and though he is not always on pleasure bent he never approaches the heights of Lovelace. The first edition of his poems, "Fragmenta Aurea," is of 1646, and the frontispiece exactly meets our natural theory of Suckling's personal aspect. He looks very pleasant in his armour. Among his successes in verse are 'Tis now since I sate down before That foolish fort, a heart and "A Ballad of a Wedding" (the most charming thing of its kind in English poetry): Out upon it, I have loved Three whole days together, When, dearest, I but think of thee, and Why so pale and wan, fond lover? It was with very slight trouble that the gay Suckling stormed the gates of poetic immortality. Habington.