One of four views of the Thames above London exhibited at Turner's own gallery in 1808. Together with ‘The Forest of Bere', three Thames Estuary scenes, and a 'View of Margate' now at Petworth House these must have given the public a fascinating insight into Turner's developing style in which, as opposed to paintings of earlier in the decade, classical formulae and a rather dry palette gave way to a much greater naturalism and feeling for atmosphere. Luckily, for no catalogue of the exhibition survives, it provoked an eighteen-and-a-half page review, almost certainly by John Landseer, in The Review of Publications of Art for 1808. ‘The show of landscape is rich and various, and appears to flow from a mind clear and copious as that noble river on whose banks the artist revels, and whose various beauties he has so frequently been delighted to display.' In comparison with other artists Turner depends 'on the manifestation of mind. ... The science which regulates his various art', however, 'appears to flow with spontaneous freedom and in an ample stream'. The reviewer noted the novelty of Turner's approach to colour. 'The brightness of his lights is less effected by the contrast of darkness than that of any other painter whatever, and even in his darkest and broadest breadths of shade, there is - either produced from some few darker touches, or by some occult magic of his peculiar art - a sufficiency of natural clearness. ... In the pictures of the present season he has been peculiarly successful in seeming to mingle light itself with his colours. Perhaps no landscape-painter has ever before so successfully caught the living lustre of Nature herself..

Over three pages were devoted to 'Pope's Villa' itself. ‘The artist has here painted not merely a portrait of this very interesting reach of the Thames, but all that a poet would think and feel on beholding the favourite retreat of so great a poet as Pope, sinking under the hand of modern improvement.' The artist ‘has represented with unprecedented success, the poetic hour of pensive feeling on a tranquil autumnal evening', and the figures add to the prevailing sentiment of the picture, pensive tranquillity. The reviewer even detected a hint at what was to become perhaps Turner's most important subject, the comparison of ‘the permanency of Nature herself with the fluctuations of fashion and the vicissitudes of taste; . .. not even the taste, and the genius, and the reputation of Pope, could retard the operations of Time, the irksomeness of satiety, and the consequent desire of change!’

The reviewer concluded, 'In adding this picture to his collection, Sir John Leicester has added much to his former reputation as a tasteful collector of modern art.' The purchase was also noted by The Examiner for 8 May, and Turner's receipt for 200 guineas survives. The picture was engraved in 1810 for inclusion in John Britton's Fine Arts of the English School, 1811-12 (repr. Gage 1969, pl.43), and at the sale of Sir John Leicester's paintings in 1827 it was bought by James Morrison for 210 guineas.

Pope's Villa had been demolished in 1807 and there is a draft of an 'Invocation of Thames to the Seasons - upon the Demolition of Pope's House' in the 'Greenwich' sketchbook (T.B.CII-11v onwards). There is also a more finished poem on the subject in the Poetry Notebook in the possession of C. M. W. Turner (see Jack Lindsay The Sunset Ship, 1966, p.117). The same Notebook also contains a poem on ‘Thomson's Æolian Harp', the subject of the large oil painting exhibited in Turner's gallery the following year, 1809, with further verses also referring to Pope's Villa; this picture was also bought, probably in the 1820s, by James Morrison.