The temple of Fame is represented on a foundation of ice, to signify the brittle nature and precarious tenure, as well as the difficult attainment of that possession, according to the poet himself below, ver. 504:
So hard to gain, so easy to be lost.—Wakefield.
Having complained that it was contrary to the laws of sight to suppose that a prospect in sleep could be extended beyond the ordinary range of mortal vision, Dennis proceeds to contend that for a rock to be sustained in the air was contrary to the eternal laws of gravitation, "which," says Pope sarcastically, in a manuscript note, "no dream ought to be." The cavil of Dennis was as false in science as in criticism, for it is not more contrary to the laws of gravitation for a rock to be suspended in space than for the earth itself.
[15] Dryden, Æneis, vi. 193:
Smooth the descent, and easy is the way.
Tho saw I all the hill y-grave
With famous folkes names fele.
That had been in muchel wele
And her fames wide y-blow;
But well unneth might I know
Any letters for to rede
Their names by, for, out of drede,
They weren almost off-thawen so,
That of the letters one or two
Were molte away of every name,
So unfamous was woxe their fame;
But men said what may ever last.—Pope.
Tho gan I in myne harte cast,
That they were molte away for heate,
And not away with stormes beate.—Pope.
[18] Does not this use of the heat of the sun appear to be a puerile and far-fetched conceit? What connection is there betwixt the two sorts of excesses here mentioned? My purpose in animadverting so frequently as I have done on this species of false thoughts is to guard the reader, especially of the younger sort, from being betrayed by the authority of so correct a writer as Pope into such specious and false refinements of style.—Warton.