At the top of the page is a note of two lines: ‘2. 6 of 3. 6 from to to [sic] 4 [?rehung] and | [...] some [?add...t... paper] entering with Money’. This seems to be connected with Royal Academy business; for various other such notes in this sketchbook, see under folio 4 recto (
D13757).
Below is a draft of poetry:
Of [?G...] thy [... ?high] Gay Rein
In Summer reign enlarged Autumns gleams
Her [?golden] beauty [... ?Sheen]
Of Glassy Thames by any graces beams
[?Wake ...] spurns the Queen
Of [?sleeping] honor, [? ‘so’ or ‘to’] the wide spread scene
[...] thy beauties as thy rising hills
To the ex[...] of [?extra] vastness fills
To [... ?hight] <...> [...] groves
[...] by O[...]
from the long [...] of T[...] B[...] hight
[...] delight
Turner’s somewhat cramped had here makes a full transcription problematic, but the general sense is of a nature poem with a Thames Valley setting, a common theme in Turner’s verse.
1 His large painting
England: Richmond Hill, on the Prince Regent’s Birthday, was exhibited in 1819 (Tate
N00502),
2 as noted under folio 4 verso (
D13758); it was accompanied in the Royal Academy catalogue
3 by the following lines from ‘Summer’ from James Thomson’s
Seasons:
Which way, Amanda, shall we bend our course?
The choice perplexes. Wherefore should we chuse [sic]?
All is the same with thee. Say, shall we wind
Along the streams? or walk the smiling mead?
Or court the forest-glades? or wander wild
Among the waving harvests? or ascend,
While radiant Summer opens all its pride,
Thy Hill, delightful Shene?
As the sketches on folio 2 recto opposite (
D13753) may relate to the Richmond Hill painting, it is possible that Turner’s lines here are a draft for a poem to accompany it, which he left unresolved in favour of Thomson. ‘Sheen’ or ‘Shene’ is an archaic or poetic name for Richmond as a whole, and East Sheen still forms part of the borough.
Matthew Imms
September 2013
