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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Perspective lectures c.1809-28 > Perspective Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry c.1809

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry’ c.1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 24 Recto:
Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry circa 1809
D07392
Turner Bequest CVIII 24
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 115 x 88 mm
Inscibed by Turner in ink (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘24’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CVIII – 24’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page is taken up with lines of poetry:
The cross and Union sympathize
And wide oer all thy banner flies
Of fam’d St George of sanguine hue
Whose tenchant sword the dragon slew
Waved oer the field of maiden white
Thy crimson cross appear more bright
The humbled pride of Gallic chance
The boasted triple flag of France
Batavia since she now must groan
And painted Liberty but not her own
Iberia flag tho now as an ally
In equal portions meet each pleased eye
In dazzeling folds and rich as Flodden Field
Not in gay [overwriting ‘its’] <ensign> [‘colors’ inserted above] could the pagent yield
And now the Gun flashes tho [sic] the air
Its thundering voice prepare prepare
Remove the shore that hence her weight
May not upon the Shears so great
Bind all the Ropes more tackel have
That may perhaps her honor save
Where ever danger most appears
There the chief artificer steers1
In reading the fifth line from the end, Wilton and Turner give the fifth word as ‘shrouds’ (part of a mast’s rigging), but it appears to be ‘Shears’, indicating an inverted-V framework from which tackle is hung to assist in raising heavy components or equipment.2
This is the fifth passage of a poem (‘Must toiling Man for ever meet disgrace’) which runs over seven pages from folio 20 recto (D07388) up to folio 26 recto (D07394); the previous section is on folio 23 recto (D07391), and it continues on folio 25 recto (D07393). For a concordance of the extensive passages of poetry in this book, see the sketchbook Introduction.
James Hamilton, quoting the last four lines from the previous leaf (folio 23; D07391) and the first eight here, notes Turner’s patriotism and ‘fashionable anti-French sentiments’3 in the context of the ongoing Napoleonic Wars. In quoting some of the descriptions of the flags, Jack Lindsay has observed ‘a certain unity of conception up to this point’ in celebrating the craft and creativity of shipbuilding, but feels Turner ‘grows impatient’ as the poem ‘slithers into doggerel’ and becomes ‘more mocking’.4
1
See Wilton and Turner 1990, p.164 (transcription, followed here with slight variations).
2
‘Shear, n.1 ([definition] 4)’, OED Online, accessed 13 May 2008, http://dictionary.oed.com/.
3
Hamilton 2003, p.99.
4
Lindsay 1966, p.68 (transcribing intermittent lines).
Verso:
Blank, save for slight offsetting from the ink inscription opposite on folio 25 recto (D07393).

Matthew Imms
June 2008

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry c.1809 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2008, 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-r1136588, accessed 23 September 2024.