IX.
SIR JOHN SUCKLING'S CAMPAIGNE.
When the Scottish covenanters rose up in arms, and advanced to the English borders in 1639, many of the courtiers complimented the king by raising forces at their own expence. Among these none were more distinguished than the gallant Sir John Suckling, who raised a troop of horse, so richly accoutred, that it cost him £12,000. The like expensive equipment of other parts of the army, made the king remark, that "the Scots would fight stoutly, if it were but for the Englishmen's fine cloaths." (Lloyd's Memoirs.) When they came to action, the rugged Scots proved more than a match for the fine shewy English: many of whom behaved remarkably ill, and among the rest this splendid troop of Sir John Suckling's.
This humorous pasquil has been generally supposed to have been written by Sir John, as a banter upon himself. Some of his contemporaries however attributed it to Sir John Mennis, a wit of those times, among whose poems it is printed in a small poetical miscellany, intitled, Musarum deliciæ: or the Muses recreation, containing several pieces of poetique wit, 2d edition.—By Sir J. M. (Sir John Mennis) and Ja. S. (James Smith.) Lond. 1656, 12mo.—(See Wood's Athenæ. ii. 397, 418.) In that copy is subjoined an additional stanza, which probably was written by this Sir John Mennis, viz.:—
"But now there is peace, he's return'd to increase
His money, which lately he spent-a,
But his lost honour must lye still in the dust;
At Barwick away it went-a."
[This song is a parody of the famous old song, John Dory, commencing.—
"As it fell on a holiday
And upon a holytide-a
John Dory bought him an ambling nag
To Paris for to ride-a."
Suckling's satirical powers made him peculiarly odious to the Parliamentarians, as they were turned against them, and consequently Mennis's lampoon was a great favourite with the Roundheads. In Le Prince d'Amour, 1660, there is a song Upon Sir John Suckling's 100 Horse, and the following are two of the seven stanzas of which it consists:—