Analysis of Some Account of a New Play
Richard Harris Barham 1788 (Canterbury) – 1845 (London)
'The play's the thing!'-- Hamlet.
Tavistock Hotel, Nov. 1839.
Dear Charles,
-- In reply to your letter, and Fanny's,
Lord Brougham, it appears, isn't dead,-- though Queen Anne is;
'Twas a 'plot' and a 'farce'-- you hate farces, you say --
Take another 'plot,' then, viz. the plot of a Play.
The Countess of Arundel, high in degree,
As a lady possess'd of an earldom in fee,
Was imprudent enough at fifteen years of age,
A period of life when we're not over sage,
To form a liaison -- in fact, to engage
Her hand to a Hop-o'-my-thumb of a Page.
This put her Papa --
She had no Mamma --
As may well be supposed, in a deuce of a rage.
Mr. Benjamin Franklin was wont to repeat,
In his budget of proverbs, 'Stolen Kisses are sweet;'
But they have their alloy --
Fate assumed, to annoy
Miss Arundel's peace, and embitter her joy,
The equivocal shape of a fine little Boy.
When, through 'the young Stranger,' her secret took wind,
The Old Lord was neither 'to haud nor to bind.'
He bounced up and down,
And so fearful a frown
Contracted his brow, you'd have thought he'd been blind.
The young lady, they say,
Having fainted away,
Was confined to her room for the whole of that day;
While her beau -- no rare thing in the old feudal system --
Disappear'd the next morning, and nobody miss'd him.
The fact is, his Lordship, who hadn't, it seems,
Form'd the slightest idea, not ev'n in his dreams,
That the pair had been wedded according to law,
Conceived that his daughter had made a faux pas;
So he bribed at a high rate
A sort of a Pirate
To knock out the poor dear young Gentleman's brains,
And gave him a handsome douceur for his pains.
The Page thus disposed of, his Lordship now turns
His attention at once to the Lday's concerns;
And, alarm'd for the future,
Looks out for a suitor,
One not fond of raking, nor giv'n to 'the pewter,'
But adapted to act both the husband and tutor --
Finds a highly respectable, middle-aged, widower,
Marries her off, and thanks Heaven that he's rid o' her.
Relieved from his cares,
The old Peer now prepares
To arrange in good earnest his worldly affairs;
Has his will made new by a Special Attorney,
Sickens, takes to his bed, and sets out on his journey.
Which way he travell'd
Has not been unravell'd;
To speculate much on the point were too curious,
If the climate he reach'd were serene or sulphureous.
To be sure in his balance-sheet all must declare
One item -- The Page -- was an awkward affair;
But, per contra, he'd lately endow'd a new Chantry
For Priests, with ten marks and the run of the pantry.
Be that as it may,
It's sufficient to say
That his tomb in the chancel stands there to this day,
Built of Bethersden marble -- a dark bluish grey.
The figure, a fine one of pure alabaster,
A cleanly churchwarden has cover'd with plaster;
While some Vandal or Jew,
With a taste for virtu,
Has knock'd off his toes, to place, I suppose,
In some Pickwick Museum, with part of his nose;
From his belt and his sword
And his misericorde
The enamel's been chipp'd out, and never restored;
His ci-gît in old French is inscribed all around,
And his head's in his helm, and his heel's on his hound,
The palms of his hands, as if going to pray,
Are join'd and upraised o'er his bosom -- But stay!
I forgot that his tomb's not described in the Play!
Lady Arundel, now in her own right a Peeress,
Perplexes her noddle with no such nice queries,
But produces in time, to her husband's great joy,
Another remarkably 'fine little boy.'
As novel connections
Oft change the affections,
And turn all one's love into different directions,
Now to young 'Johnny Newcome' she seems to confine hers,
Neglecting the poor little dear out at dry-nurse;
Nay, far worse than that,
She considers 'the brat'
As a bore -- fears her husband may smell out a rat.
As her legal adviser
She takes an old Miser,
A sort of 'poor cousin.' She might have been wiser;
For this arrant deceiver,
By name Maurice Beevor,
A shocking old scamp, should her own issue fail,
By the law of the land stands the next in entail.
So, as soon as she ask'd him to hit on some plan
To provide for her eldest, away the rogue ran
To that self-same unprincipled sea-faring man;
In his ear whisper'd low ...--'Bully Gaussen' said 'done!--
I Burked the papa, now I'll Bishop the son!'
'Twas agreed; and, with speed
To accomplish the deed,
He ad
Scheme | A XBBXCC DDEEEEFFE GGHHHH IIJJICCCXX KKXXXALLMMNNNNNN OOODDXAXBPPDDCCCCNNXAQQRARSSCCC BXHHTTTXXUUUNNNDDVVWWWXXYYX |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 010110 1011 11 001111001 1101011011111 10100111111 101011101101 01011001001 101001111001 101001101111 010011111101 1100101101 01101111101 11010 11110 111101001101 101001011101 0110110101011 11111 101101 111001001 001001101101 11011001011 01111011111 11101 011001 10011111111 011011 101001 101101101111 1011110011010 0101100111 0111111011 1010010111011 101111001011 01111011011 1111011 011010 1110111101 0110101111 0110111111 10101110101 0011010 111010 111110111010 1010111010010 10100100101100 1001011011110 01111 011101 101011011001 111111010010 111110111110 11110 1111 110110101100 10101100111 111011011101 11001111001 111011001011 111110011010 11111 101011 11100111111 1111001101 01001111100 0101110110 111011 10111 1111111101 01101011111 111011 011 0111101001 1111011101101 011011011111 01111111011 11011011011 101111101001 101001001101 01001111110 101001101011 01001001101 110010 110010 0111101100010 1111010111010 010011011111 11111 101001 101101011101 1010010 111110 011110111110 11101 11011 01011101101 101101101001 111111111111 101101001011 111101001101 0111011111 11010111001 101011 101001 11 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,323 |
Words | 812 |
Sentences | 29 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 6, 9, 6, 10, 16, 31, 27 |
Lines Amount | 106 |
Letters per line (avg) | 31 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 408 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 100 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 15, 2023
- 4:13 min read
- 60 Views
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"Some Account of a New Play" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 3 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/30095/some-account-of-a-new-play>.
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