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,

Where all that's done, though far removed, appears.]

[Footnote 13: Dryden's translation of Ovid's Met.