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Webster, Marston, Goff, Kidd, and Massinger, were the persons he instanced as tolerable writers of tragedy in Ben Jonson's time.-The same.

Carew (a bad Waller), Waller himself, and Lord Lansdown, are all of one school; as Sir John Suckling, Sir John Mennis, and Prior, are of another.-The same.

Crashaw is a worse sort of Cowley; he was a follower too of Petrarch and Marino; but most of Marino. He and Cowley were good friends, and the latter has a good copy of verses on his death. About his pitch were Stanley*, the author of the Opinions of Philosophers; Randolph, though rather superior; and Silvester, though rather of a lower form.-The same.

Cartwright and Bishop Corbet are of this class of poets; and Rughel, the author of the Counter-Scuffle, might be admitted among them.-The same.

Sam Daniel, the historian, is unpoetical, but had good sense often.-The same. Herbert is lower than Crashaw; Sir John

* See Stanley again in p. 99, and Randolph in p. 83.

Beaumont higher; and Donne a good deal so.-The same.

Donne had no imagination, but as much wit, I think, as any writer can possibly have. Oldham + is too rough and coarse. Rochester is the medium between him and the Earl of Dorset. Lord Dorset is the best of all these writers. "What, better than Lord Rochester?" Yes: Rochester has neither so much delicacy nor exactness as Dorset. Sedley is a very insipid writer, except in a few of his little love verses.-The same.

SUCKLING.

Sir John Suckling was an immoral man, as well as debauched. The story of the French Cards (his getting certain marks affixed to all that came from the great makers in France) was told me by the late Duke of Buckingham §, and he had it from old Lady Dorset herself||.—The same.

* See Donne, p. 83. + See Oldham again, p. 104. Rochester, ibid.

§ Sheffield Duke of Bucks is here meant. This anecdote was communicated to Mr. Spence in 1728.-M.

|| I suppose the Lady Dorset here meant was Lady Frances, daughter to Lionel Cranfield, Earl of Mid

That lady took a very odd pride in boasting of her familiarities with Sir John. She is the mistress and goddess in all his poems; and several of those pieces were given by herself to the printer. This the Duke of Buckingham used to give as one instance of the fondness she had to let the world know how well they were acquainted. -The same.

Sir John was a man of great vivacity and spirit. He died about the beginning of the civil war, and his death was occasioned by a very uncommon accident. He entered warmly into the King's interests, and was sent over by him into France with some letters of great consequence to the Queen*.

dlesex, by his second wife, Anne, daughter of James Brott, esq. Lady Frances Cranfield was born about the year 1620, and was married in or before the year 1637, to Richard, the fifth Earl of Dorset, who died. 1677. After his death, when she must have been fiftyseven years old, she married Henry Powle, esq. Master of the Rolls; and died on November the 20th, 1792. Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, was her nephew, his mother being half-sister to the Countess of Dorset.-M.

*This is one of a thousand proofs how difficult it is to ascertain facts at any distance of time; and how much

He arrived late at Calais, and in the night his servant ran away with his portmanteau,

every traditionary story gathers as it passes from one to another. Suckling certainly went to France, and died there; but he could not have carried any despatches to the Queen (Henrietta Maria), for he fled from London May 5th, 1641; being apprehensive of being seized, on account of a charge made by the Parliament against him of being concerned in a conspiracy with Henry Jermyn, Henry Percy, and others, to rescue Lord Strafford, and procure his escape from the Tower. On that day, says May, who was his contemporary, (Hist. of the Parl. p. 99) "he passed into France, where he not long after died." The Queen did not leave England till about ten months afterwards: February the 23d, 1641-2.

Oldys' account of this transaction is as follows :— "Recollect where I have set down the story Lord Oxford told me he had from Dean Chetwood, who had it from Lord Roscommon, of Sir John's being robbed of a casket of jewels and gold, when he was going to France, by his valet, who I think poisoned him, and stuck the blade of a penknife in Sir John's boot, to prevent his pursuit of him, and wounded him in the heel incurably besides! It is in one of my pocket-books, white vellum cover; the white journal that is not gilt." -MS. Notes on Langbaine.

in which were his money and papers. When he was told of this in the morning, he immediately inquired which way his servant had taken; ordered horses to be got ready instantly; and in pulling on his boots, found one of them extremely uneasy to him; but as the horses were at the door, he leaped into his saddle, and forgot his pain. He pursued his servant so eagerly, that he overtook him two or three posts off; recovered his portmanteau, and soon after complained of a vast pain in one of his feet, and fainted away with it. When they came to pull off his boots, to fling him into bed, they found one of them full of blood. It seems, his servant, who knew his master's temper well, and was sure he would pursue him as soon as his villany should be discovered, had driven a nail up into one of his

Lord Oxford seems to have been Mr. Pope's informer, as well as the informer of Oldys; but to have derived it from letters, not from tradition.

Aubrey, in his MS. Anecdotes of the English Poets, says that Suckling was poisoned, and died at Paris.-M.

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