The fine dactylic verse which follows, and which Dionysius of Halicarnassus so highly commends, is wonderfully descriptive of the bounding of a huge stone down a mountain:—
Αὖτις ἔπειτα πέδονδε κυλίνδετο λᾶας ἀναιδὴς.
Hom. Od. xi. 598.
Notwithstanding the numerous and highly celebrated attempts of Pope and Dryden at onomatopœiac effects in English iambic lines, I think Thomson has surpassed them both in the following line from what Byron justly pronounces one of the very finest poems in the English language:—
“Down thunders back the stone with mighty sweep!”
Castle of Indolence, cant. i.
III. “Full many a rock’s Aiantine volume rolled.”
Δεῦτερος αὖτ’ Αἴας πολύ μείζονα λᾶαν ἀείρας.
Hom. Il. vii. 268.