Analysis of To Mr. Edward Howard on His New Utopia
Charles Sackville 1643 ( Sussex) – 1706 (Bath, Somerset)
Thou damn'd antipodes to common sense!
Thou foil to Flecknoe! Prithee tell from whence
Does all this mighty stock of dullness spring,
Which in such loads thou to the stage dost bring?
Is't all thy own, or hast thou from Snow Hill
Th'assistance of some ballad-making quill?
No, they fly higher yet; thy plays are such
I'd swear they were translated out of Dutch:
And who the devil was e'er yet so drunk
To own the volumes of Mynheer Van Dunk?
Fain would I know what diet thou dost keep,
If thou dost always or dost never sleep.
Sure hasty pudding is thy chiefest dish;
With lights and livers and with stinking fish,
Oxcheek, tripe, garbage, thou dost treat thy brain,
Which nobly pays this tribute back again.
With daisy roots thy dwarfish muse is fed:
A giant's body with a pigmy's head.
Canst thou not find 'mongst all thy num'rous race
One friend so kind to tell thee that thy play's
Laugh'd at by box, pit, gallery, nay stage
And grown the nauseous grievance of this age?
Think on't a while, and thou wilt quickly find
Thy body made for labor, not thy mind.
No other use of paper thou should'st make
But carrying loads of reams upon thy back.
Carry vast burdens 'till thy shoulders shrink,
But curs'd be he that gives thee pen and ink:
Those dang'rous weapons should be kept from fools,
As nurses from their children keep edge tools.
For thy dull muse a muckender were fit
To wipe the slav'rings of her infant wit,
Which, though 'tis late, if justice could be found,
Should like blind, new-born puppies yet be drown'd.
For were it not we must respect afford
To any muse that's grandchild to a lord,
Thine in the ducking stool should take her seat,
Drench'd like herself in a great chair of state,
Where like a muse of quality she'll die,
And thou thyself shalt make her elegy
In the same strain thou writ'st thy comedy.
Scheme | AABBCCDDEEFFGGHIJJKLMMNNOPQQRRSSTTUUVWXYY |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111101 11111111 1111011101 1011110111 11111111111 110101110101 1111011111 1110010111 01010110111 110101111 1111110111 111111101 110101111 1101001101 111011111 1101110101 110111111 010101011 111111111 1111111111 1111110011 0101010111 11101011101 1101110111 11011101111 11001110111 1011011101 1111111101 111011111 1101110111 11110101 1101110101 1111110111 1111110111 1011110101 110111101 1001011101 1101001111 1101110011 011110100 00111111100 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,829 |
Words | 336 |
Sentences | 15 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 41 |
Lines Amount | 41 |
Letters per line (avg) | 35 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,420 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 334 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:46 min read
- 76 Views
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"To Mr. Edward Howard on His New Utopia" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/42727/to-mr.-edward-howard-on-his-new-utopia>.
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