Page:Works of Sir John Suckling.djvu/384

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		which he had verses; but 'Dr. Earles'—i.e., Earle—'would not allow him to be a good poet, though a great witt; he writt not a smoth verse, but a greate deal of sense.'
12.	l. 107.	Davenant] D'Avenant, as a young man about town, was probably hostile to members of the City Council. During the Civil War (Aubrey, loc. cit., i. 206-208) he took prisoner two aldermen of York, who afterwards were instrumental in saving his life.
12-14.	Love's World.
		The annotator who signs himself 'W. W.' remarks on the mixture of childish conceit with beauty in this poem. The idea of man's heart or soul as a microcosm of the world at large was well-worn in Suckling's time. Donne especially had used it; cf. The Dissolution (ed. Chambers, i. 69): 'My fire of passion, sighs of air, Water of tears, and earthy sad despair, Which my materials be'; Holy Sonnets, v. (ibid., i. 159): 'I am a little world made cunningly Of elements,' etc.
14.	Sonnets: I.
		In the early editions, these so-called sonnets are preceded by the song, 'Why so pale and wan, fond lover,' which is sung in Aglaura, Act IV., and will be found there in the present volume.
	l. 10.	Am still] And still 1658.
15.	Sonnets: II.
	l. 12.	Lik'd] Like't 1646, 1648, 1658.
16.	Sonnets: III.
	l. 1.	Suckling's opening is obviously inspired by the famous beginning of Donne's Love's Deity (loc. cit., i. 56). A similar opening to a poem by James Greene, called Girls' Dreams, is mentioned in a note quoted by Hazlitt.
	l. 26.	Philoclea] In Sidney's Arcadia, the Thracian Prince Pyrocles falls in love with the Arcadian Princess Philoclea, and, disguised as an Amazon, obtains admission to the country retirement of her parents, Basilius and Gynecia. Cecropia, sister-in-law of Basilius, wishes to marry Philoclea to her son Amphialus, and, out of spite to Basilius