invented the game of cribbage, and relates that his sisters came weeping to the bowling green at Piccadilly to dissuade him from play, fearing that he would lose their portions. In 1634 great scandal was caused in his old circle by a beating which he received at the hands of Sir John Digby, a rival suitor for the hand of the daughter of Sir John Willoughby; and it has been suggested that this incident, which is narrated at length in a letter (Nov. 10, 1634) from George Garrard[1] to Strafford, had something to do with his beginning to seek more serious society. In 1635 he retired to his country estates in obedience to the proclamation of the 20th of June 1632 enforced by the Star Chamber[2] against absentee landlordism, and employed his leisure in literary pursuits. In 1637 “A Sessions of the Poets” was circulated in MS., and about the same time he wrote a tract on Socinianism entitled An Account of Religion by Reason (pr. 1646).
As a dramatist Suckling is noteworthy as having applied to regular drama the accessories already used in the production of masques. His Aglaura (pr. 1638) was produced at his own expense with elaborate scenery. Even the lace on the actors' coats was of real gold and silver. The play, in spite of its felicity of diction, lacks dramatic interest, and the criticism of Richard Flecknoe (Short Discourse of the English Stage),[3] that it seemed “full of flowers, but rather stuck in than growing there,” is not altogether unjustified. The Goblins (1638, pr. 1646) has some reminiscences of The Tempest; Brennoralt, or the Discontented Colonel (1639, pr. 1646) is a satire on the Scots, who are the Lithuanian rebels of the play; a fourth play, The Sad One, was left unfinished owing to the outbreak of the Civil War. Suckling raised a troop of a hundred horse, at a cost of £12,000, and accompanied Charles on the Scottish expedition of 1639. He shared in the earl of Holland’s retreat before Duns, and was ridiculed in an amusing ballad (pr. 1656), In Musarum deliciae “on Sir John Suckling’s most war-like preparations for the Scottish war.”[4] He was elected as member for Bramber for the opening session (1640) of the Long Parliament; and in that winter he drew up a letter addressed to Henry Jermyn, afterwards earl of St Albans, advising the king to disconcert the opposition leaders by making more concessions than they asked for. In May of the following year he was implicated in an attempt to rescue Strafford from the Tower and to bring In French troops to the king’s aid. The plot was exposed by the evidence of Colonel George Goring, and Suckling fled beyond the seas. The circumstances of his short exile are obscure. He was certainly in Paris in the summer of 1641. One pamphlet related a story of his elopement with a lady to Spain, where he fell into the hands of the Inquisition. The manner of his death is uncertain, but Aubrey’s statement that he put an end to his life by poison in May or June 1642 in fear of poverty is generally accepted.
Suckling’s reputation as a poet depends on his minor pieces. They have wit and fancy, and at times exquisite felicity of expression. “Easy, natural Suckling,” Millamant’s comment in Congreve’s Way of the World (Act iv., sc. i.) is a just tribute to their spontaneous quality. Among the best known of them are the “Ballade upon a Wedding,” on the occasion of the marriage of Roger Boyle, afterwards earl of Orrery, and Lady Margaret Howard, “I prithee, send me back my heart,” “Out upon it, I have loved three whole days together,” and “Why so pale and wan, fond lover?” from Aglaura. “A Sessions of the Poets,” describing a meeting of the contemporary versifiers under the presidency of Apollo to decide who should wear the laurel wreath, is the prototype of many later satires.
A collection of Suckling’s poems was first published In 1646 as Fragmenta aurea. the so-called Selections (1836) published by the Rev. Alfred Inigo Suckling, author of the History and Antiquities of Suffolk (1846–1848) with Memoirs based on original authorities and a portrait after Van Dyck. is really a complete edition of his works, of which W. C. Hazlitt’s edition (1874; revised ed., 1892) is little more than a reprint with some additions. The Poems and Songs of Sir John Suckling, edited by John Gray and decorated with woodcut border and initials by Charles Ricketts, was artistically printed at the Ballantyne Press in 1896. In 1910 Suckling’s works in prose and verse were edited by A. Hamilton Thompson. For anecdotes of Suckling’s life see John Aubrey’s Brief Lives (Clarendon Press ed., ii. 242).
SUCRE, or Chiquisaca, a city of Bolivia, capital of the department of Chuquisaca and nominal capital of the republic, 46 m. N.E. of Potosi in 19° 2′ 45″ S., 65° 17′ W. Pop. (1900), 20,967; (1906, estimate), 23,416, of whom many are Indians and cholos. The city is in an elevated valley opening southward on the narrow ravine through which flows the Cachimayo, the principal northern tributary of the Pilcomayo. Its elevation, 8839 ft., gives it an exceptionally agreeable climate. There are fertile valleys in the vicinity which provide the city’s markets with fruit and vegetables, while the vineyards of Camargo (formerly known as Cinti), in the southern part of the department, supply wine and spirits of excellent quality. The city is laid out regularly, with broad streets, a large central plaza and a public garden, or promenade, called the prado. Among its buildings are the cathedral, dating from 1553 and once noted for its wealth; the president’s palace and halls of congress, which are no longer occupied as such by the national government; the cabildo, or town-hall; a mint dating from 1572; the courts of justice, and the university of San Xavier, founded in 1624, with faculties of law, medicine and theology. There is a pretty chapel called the “Rotunda,” erected in 1852 at the lower end of the prado by President Belzú, on the spot where an attempt had been made to assassinate him. Sucre is the seat of the archbishop of La Plata and Charcas, the primate of Bolivia. It is not a commercial town, and its only noteworthy manufacture is the “clay dumplings” which are eaten with potatoes by the inhabitants of the Bolivian uplands. Although the capital of Bolivia, Sucre is one of its most isolated towns because of the difficult character of the roads leading to it. It is reached from the Pacific by way of Challapata, a station on the Antofagasta & Oruro railway.
The Spanish town, according to Velasco, was founded in 1538 by Captain Pedro Angules on the site of an Indian village called Chuquisaca, or Chuquichaca (golden bridge), and was called Charcas and Ciudad de la Plata by the Spaniards, though the natives clung to the original Indian name. It became the capital of the province of Charcas, of the comarca of Chuquisaca, and of the bishopric of La Plata and Charcas, and in time it became the favourite residence and health resort of the rich mine-owners of Potosi. The bishopric dates from 1552 and the archbishopric from 1609. In the latter year was created the Real Audiencia de la Plata y Charcas, a royal court of justice having jurisdiction over Upper Peru and the La Plata provinces of that time. Sucre was the first city of Spanish South America to revolt against Spanish rule—on the 25th of May 1809. In 1840 the name Sucre was adopted in honour of the patriot commander who won the last decisive battle of the war, and then became the first president of Bolivia. The city has suffered much from partisan strife, and the removal of the government to La Paz greatly diminished its importance.
SUGZAWA (Rumanian, Suceava), a town in Bukovina, Austria, 50 m. S. of Czernowitz by rail. Pop. (1900), 10,955. It is situated on the river Suczawa, which forms there the boundary between Bukovina and Rumania. One of its two churches, dating from the 14th century, contains the grave of the patron saint of Bukovina. The principal industry is the tanning and leather trade. Not far from Suczawa lies the monastery of Dragomirna, in Byzantine style, built at the beginning of the 17th century. Suczawa is a very old town and was until 1565 the capital of the principality of Moldavia. It was many times besieged by Poles, Hungarians, Tatars and Turks. In 1675 it was besieged by Sobieski, and in 1679 it was plundered by the Turks.
- ↑ Strafford’s Letters and Despatches (1739), i. 336.
- ↑ For an account of the proceedings see Historical Collections, ed. by Rushworth (1680), 2nd pt., pp. 288–293.
- ↑ Reprinted in Eng. Drama and Stage, ed. W. C. Hazlitt; Roxburghe Library (1869), p. 277.
- ↑ Attributed by Aubrey to Sir John Mennis (1599–1671). See also a song printed in the tract, Vox borealis (Harl. Misc. iii. 235).
