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Page:Works of Sir John Suckling.djvu/396

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376
SIR JOHN SUCKLING

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William, Earl of Hertford, and afterwards first Duke of Somerset, was created Baron Seymour of Trowbridge in 1641, and was twice married. Sir Edward Seymour of Berry Pomeroy, second baronet, married Dorothy, daughter of Sir Henry Killigrew; while Anne, daughter of Richard, Earl of Dorset, was widow of Sir Edward Seymour, elder brother of the future Duke of Somerset. One of three ladies may be thus intended.
59. Upon L. M. Weeping.
L. M. is printed by Hazlitt, L(ady) M(iddlesex). It is impossible to identify her with certainty. Suckling's maternal uncle, Lionel Cranfield, married as his second wife in 1621, Anne, daughter of James Bret, Esq., of Hoby, Leicestershire.
61. His Dream.
l. 16. Arabick spices] Cf. the passage in Sad One, IV. i., which begins, 'Thy father fed On musk and amber,' etc.
63. Upon Sir John Laurence's, etc.
Witten is Whitton in the parish of Twickenham, the seat of Suckling's uncle, Lord Middlesex.
l. 8. For love will creep] Cf. the opening of the poem To His Rival above.
A Barber.
l. 8. great Sweden's force] This allusion suggests a fairly early date for the poem. The exploits of Gustavus Adolphus in the Thirty Years' War took place between 1630 and 1632.
64, 65. A Pedlar of Smallwares.
The ladies whose initials are given in this poem cannot be identified with any certainty. L. W. may be Lady Weston. Sir Jerome Weston, styled Baron Weston of Neyland in 1634, succeeded his father, the famous Lord Treasurer, as second Earl of Portland in 1635. His wife was Lady Frances Stewart, second daughter of Esmé, Duke of Lennox, whom he married in 1632. This, at any rate, supplies a date-limit for the poem; but, even so, it is simply matter of conjecture.