J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Devonshire Coast, No.1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 93 Verso:
Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry 1811
D08540
Turner Bequest CXXIII 90a
Inscribed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry) on white wove printing paper, 75 x 117 mm
Part watermark ‘kie’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page is taken up with the following lines of verse:
Oh powrful beings hail whose stubborn soul
Even oer itself to urge [?even] self control
Thus Regulus who. every torture did await
Denyd himself admitance at the gate
Because of captive to proud Carthage power
But his firm soul would not the Romans lower
Not wife or children dear or self could hold
A Moments parley . love made him bold
Love of his country for not aut [i.e. ‘aught’] beside
He loved but for that love he died1
Interspersed with drawings and the printed pages of Coltman’s British Itinerary, sixty-nine pages of this sketchbook are given over wholly or partly to these verses which Turner intended as a commentary for publication with the Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England which he sketched on the 1811 West Country tour (see the introduction to the sketchbook). The first lines are on folio 18 verso (D08396), and the last on folio 207 verso (D08736; CXXIII 204a).
The previous passage, on folio 90 verso (D08534; CXXIII 87a), and the next, on folio 98 verso (D08550; CXXIII 95a) are both concerned with Maiden Castle, the Iron Age hill fort in Dorset, which Turner incorrectly assumed to have been a site associated with the Romans (see under folio 90 verso), the ‘powrful beings’ of the first line here. He digresses with the story of Regulus, the Roman general who was captured by the Carthaginians, and sent back to Rome to negotiate peace on their terms in about 250 BC. Having instead urged his countrymen to continue the conflict, he nevertheless returned to Carthage as a point of honour and was executed.2
James Hamilton sees the lines as showing, among his ‘different characteristics’, Turner ‘the Classical scholar’.3 Turner’s interest in the story is also shown in his listing ‘Regulus return’ as a possible theme for a painting inside the cover front cover of volume II of his copy of Oliver Goldsmith’s Roman History of 1786 (private collection), where Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps is also noted.4 Since the major oil of the latter subject was exhibited in 1812 (Tate N00490),5 the list may date from a little earlier, making it perhaps contemporary with the present sketchbook.6 It was not until 1828 that Turner exhibited his painting of Regulus (Tate N00519),7 a late addition to his cycle on the themes of Dido and Aeneas, Rome and Carthage.

Matthew Imms
June 2011

1
See Wilton and Turner 1990, p.172 (transcription, followed here with slight variations); previously transcribed with variations in Thornbury 1862, II, p.25 and 1897, p.213, Wilton 1980, p.143, Powell 1984, p.317, and Nicholson 1990, p.111; all but the first two lines transcribed in Finley 1999, p.224 note 11, and Hamilton 2003, p.102.
2
See for example Wilton 1980, pp.142–3, and Powell 1984, pp.314–15.
3
Hamilton 2003, pp.100, 102.
4
See Jack Lindsay, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work: A Critical Biography, London 1966, pp.118, 236 note 29; Gage 1969, p.143; and Powell 1984, pp.316, 527 note 83.
5
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.88–90 no.126 pl.131 (colour).
6
Powell 1984, pp.316–17, and pp.313–21 in general.
7
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.172–3 no.294, pl.296 (colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inscription-by-turner-draft-of-poetry-r1137017, accessed 08 May 2025.