s 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.]

[Footnote 15: Dryden, AEneis, vi. 193:

Smooth the descent, and easy is the way.]

[Footnote 16:

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.]

[Footnote 17:

Tho gan I in myne harte cast,
That they were molte away for heate,
And not away with stormes beate.--POPE.]

[Footnote 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.

Not only is the comparison defective, but the fundamental idea is
unfounded, for though excess of admiration may produce a temporary
reaction, the opinion of the world oscillates back to the middle line,
and no instance can be quoted of an author who has finally lost his due
reputation because he had once been overpraised. Chaucer makes a
different use of the image. In his poem the north side of the icy
mountain bears the names of the ancients which were safe from injury.
The sunny side bears the names of the moderns, and he perhaps intended
to intimate his opinion that the reason why their fame was less durable
than that of the Gre