Note 26 — THE TEMPLE OF FAME.
Reading edition
The expression literally interpreted would signify that the gates were placed on the top of columns. Pope could not have had such a preposterous notion in his mind, and the meaning must be that the lofty gates were hung upon columns. He copied a couplet in Dryden's Æneis, vi. 744, where the translation misrepresents the original:
Wide is the fronting gate, and raised on high With adamantine columns, threats the sky.