The drivers stood: with palpitating heart
Each sought the prize: each urged his steeds aloud;
They, flying, fill’d with dust the darken’d air.
Cowper.
This description apparently suggested to Virgil the chariot-race in the Georgics iii. 402, which Dryden has rendered with all the fire of the original.
[268] The ocean flow’d.] Homer, Il. xviii. Shield of Achilles:
Last with the might of ocean’s boundless flood
He fill’d the border of the wondrous shield.
Cowper.
[269] Race of the far-famed Lyngeus.] Lyngeus was the ancestor of Perseus, the son of Danaë, and the father of Alcæus: of whom Amphitryon was the son.