Analysis of To Mr. Edward Howard, on his Incomparable, Incomprehensible Poem Called The British Princes
Charles Sackville 1643 ( Sussex) – 1706 (Bath, Somerset)
Come on, ye critics! Find one fault who dare,
For, read it backward like a witch's prayer,
'Twill do as well; throw not away your jests
On solid nonsense that abides all tests.
Wit, like tierce claret, when 't begins to pall,
Neglected lies and's of no use at all;
But in its full perfection of decay,
Turns vinegar and comes again in play.
This simile shall stand in thy defence
'Gainst such dull rogues as now and then write sense.
He lies, dear Ned, who says thy brain is barren,
Where deep conceits, like vermin, breed in carrion;
Thou hast a brain, such as thou hast, indeed --
On what else should thy worm of fancy feed?
Yet in a filbert I have often known
Maggots survive when all the kernel's gone.
Thy style's the same whatever be the theme,
As some digestions turn all meat to phlegm:
Thy stumbling, founder'd jade can trot as high
As any other Pegasus can fly.
As skillful divers to the bottom fall
Sooner than those that cannot swim at all,
So in this way of writing without thinking
Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking:
Thou writest below e'en thy own natural parts
And with acquired dullness and new arts
Of studied nonsense tak'st kind readers' heart.
So the dull eel moves nimbler in the mud
Than all the swift-finn'd racers of the flood.
Therefore, dear Ned, at my advice forbear
Such loud complaints 'gainst critics to prefer,
Since thou art turn'd an arrant libeller:
Thou sett'st thy name to what thyself dost write;
Did ever libel yet so sharply bite?
Scheme | AABBXCDDEEFFGGXXXXHHCCIIJJXKKA XALL |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1111011111 1111010101 1111110111 1101010111 1111110111 0101111111 1011010101 1100010101 11110101 1111110111 11111111110 11111010100 1101111101 1111111101 1001011101 100111011 110110101 11111111 11001011111 1101010011 1101010101 1011110111 10111100110 11010100010 110111111001 0101010011 11010111101 101111001 1101110101 11111011 1101110101 11111101 111111111 1101011101 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,483 |
Words | 271 |
Sentences | 11 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 30, 4 |
Lines Amount | 34 |
Letters per line (avg) | 34 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 576 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 135 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:24 min read
- 42 Views
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"To Mr. Edward Howard, on his Incomparable, Incomprehensible Poem Called The British Princes" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 27 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/42726/to-mr.-edward-howard%2C-on-his-incomparable%2C-incomprehensible-poem-called-the-british-princes>.
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