Suckling, Sir John (1609–42), a member of
Falkland's circle at Great Tew, he was knighted in 1630. He became a leader of the Royalist party in the early troubles, then fled to France and is said by
Aubrey to have committed suicide in Paris. His chief works are included in
Fragmenta Aurea (1646) and consist of poems, plays, letters, and tracts, among them the famous ‘Ballad upon a Wedding’. His ‘Sessions of the Poets’, in which various writers of the day, including
Jonson,
Carew, and
D'Avenant, contend for the laurel, was written in 1637; it is interesting as an expression of contemporary opinion on these writers. Suckling's plays are chiefly valuable for their lyrics. Among these are
Aglaura (with two fifth acts, one tragic, the other not) printed in 1638,
The Goblins (1646), a romantic drama, and
Brennoralt (1646), an expansion of the
Discontented Colonell (1640), a tragedy, interesting for the light which the melancholy colonel throws on the author himself. Suckling has enjoyed a steady reputation as one of the most elegant and brilliant of the
Cavalier poets. According to Aubrey, he invented the game of cribbage.