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

Turner’s inscription reads:

This famous old ballad, supposedly sung by Friar Tuck, exists in a number of versions. It was given by Shakespeare to Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew, included by Dr Percy in his Reliques (1765) and repeated by Oliver Goldsmith (1767). The musical version most familiar to Turner was probably that in the ballad-opera Merry Sherwood, with words by John O’Keefe and music by William Reeve, given at Covent Garden in the winter of 1795–6 and again as a benefit in 1800. A glee version, for two trebles and a bass, was published by John Callcott, elder brother of Turner’s future friend the painter Augustus Callcott, in 1796. Turner may have jotted down his own recollection of the words as he travelled. Some lines are first noted, rather shakily, in a kind of shorthand, then rewritten in full.