[Footnote 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.
Or as Sandys translates it,