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

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 174 Verso:
Inscription by Turner: Draft of Poetry 1811
D08689
Turner Bequest CXXIII 171a
Inscribed by Turner in pencil (see main catalogue entry) on white wove printing paper, 75 x 117 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The whole page is taken up with the following lines of verse:
Hangs having bloomd sheds upon the bear [i.e. ‘bier’]
of fallen greatness its last fragrant tear
[an illegible word inserted between these lines]
Lost oer the first and ask if little pride
Can stand the contest by fair minds side
[another, almost illegible, variation on the previous line]
Rang all their power even so and bright
[?There ...]
Alas that might reward for merit tried
Should give the means of [?losing & ...] pride
Should longer thy house [?abuses]1
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 tentative reading above follows Wilton and Turner’s; the lines are barely more legible than those in the previous passage, on folio 172 verso (D08685; CXXIII 169a), which deals with elevated themes of death and glory, apparently with reference to Napoleon and Admiral Lord Nelson, continued here. The next lines, on folio 177 verso (D08693; CXXIII 174a), make specific mention of Nelson, the main focus of the rest of the poem.

Matthew Imms
June 2011

1
See Wilton and Turner 1990, p.175 (transcription, followed here with slight variations).

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-r1137167, accessed 20 April 2024.