t pursues its flight, regardless of
their noise" (Gray).

Cf. Spenser, _F. Q._ v. 4, 42:

"Like to an Eagle, in his kingly pride
Soring through his wide Empire of the aire,
To weather his brode sailes."

Cowley, in his translation of Horace, _Od._ iv. 2, calls Pindar "the
Theban swan" ("Dircaeum cycnum"):

"Lo! how the obsequious wind and swelling air
The Theban Swan does upward bear."

117. _Azure deep of air_. Cf. Euripides, _Med._ 1294: [Greek: es
aitheros bathos]; and Lucretius, ii. 151: "Aeris in magnum fertur
mare." Cowley has "Row through the trackless ocean of air;" and
Shakes. (_T. of A._ iv. 2), "this sea of air."

118, 119. The MS. reads:

"Yet when they first were open'd on the day
Before his visionary eyes would run."

D. Stewart (_Philos. of Human Mind_) remarks that "Gray, in
describing the infantine reveries of poetical genius, has fixed with
exquisite judgment on that class of our conceptions which are derived
from _visible_ objects."

120. _With orient hues_. Cf. Milton, _P. L._ i. 546: "with orient
colours waving."

122. The MS. has "Yet never can he fear a vulgar fate."

123. Cf. K. Philips: "Still shew'd how much the good outshone the
great."

We append, as a curiosity of criticism, Dr. Johnson's comments on
this ode, from his _Lives of the Poets_. The Life of Gray has been
called "the worst in the series," and perhaps this is the worst part
of it:[4]

"My process has now brought me to the _wonderful_ 'Wonder of
Wonders,' the two Sister Odes, by which, though either vulgar
ignorance or common-sense at first universally rejected them, many
have been since persuaded to think themselves delighted. I am one of
those that are willing to be pleased, and therefore would gladly find
the meaning of the first stanza of 'The Progress of Poetry.'

"Gray seems in his rapture to confound the images of spreading sound
and running water. A 'stream of music' may be allowed; but where does
'music,' however 'smooth and strong,' after having visited the
'verdant vales, roll down the steep amain,' so as that 'rocks and
nodding groves rebellow to the roar?' If this be said of music, it is
nonsense; if it be said of water, it is nothing to the purpose.

"The second stanza, exhibiting Mars's car and Jove's eagle, is
unworthy of further notice. Criticism disdains to chase a schoolboy
to his commonplaces.

"To the third it may likewise be objected that it is drawn from
mythology,