[9] Dryden, Ovid, Met. xii.:
Full in the midst of this created space,
Betwixt heav'n, earth, and skies, there stands a place
Confining on all three.—Wakefield.
[10] This verse was formed from a very fine one in Paradise Lost, vii. 242:
And earth self-balanced on her center hung.—Wakefield.
[11] Addison's translation of a passage from Ausonius:
And intermingled temples rise between.
[12] These verses are hinted from the following of Chaucer, book ii.:
Tho beheld I fields and plains,
And now hills, and now mountains,
Now valeys, and now forestes,
And now unnethes great bestes,
Now riveres, now citees,
Now townes, and now great trees,
Now shippes sayling in the sea.—Pope.
Dennis objected to Pope's version that "if the whole creation was open to his eyes" he must be too high "to discern such minute objects as ships and trees." But the imagination in dreams conjures up appearances which are beyond the compass of the waking powers, and it is therefore strictly natural to represent events as passing in visions, which would be unnatural in actual life. Added to this, Pope had before him Ovid's description of the house of Fame, which is endued with the property of enabling the beholder to distinguish the smallest objects however remote:
Unde quod est usquam, quamvis regionibus absit,
Inspicitur.