Page:The Temple of Fame - Pope (1715).pdf/53



''Tho' a short Verisimilitude be not requir'd in the Descriptions of this visionary and allegorical kind of Poetry, which admits of every wild Object that Fancy may present in a Dream, and where it is sufficient if the moral Meaning atone for the Improbability: Yet Men are naturally so desirous of Truth, that a Reader is generally pleas'd, in such a Case, with some Excuse or Allusion that seems to reconcile the Description to Probability and Nature. The Simile here is of that sort, and renders it not wholly unlikely that a Rock of Ice should remain for ever, by mentioning something like it in the Northern Regions, agreeing with the Accounts of our modern Travellers''.

''The Temple is describ'd to be square, the four Fronts with open Gates facing the different Quarters of the World, as an Intimation that all Nations of the Earth may alike be receiv'd into it. The Western Front is of Grecian Architecture: the Dorick Order was peculiarly sacred to Heroes and Warriors. Those whose Statues are here mention'd, were the first Names of old Greece in Arms and Arts.''

This Figure of Hercules is drawn with an eye to the Position of the famous Statue of Farnese.

Pag.