passages quoted by Liddell.

[31] I find this chapter rather tiresome on re-reading it myself, and
cancel some farther criticism of the imitation of this passage by Virgil,
one of the few pieces of the AEneid which are purely and vulgarly imitative,
rendered also false as well as weak by the introducing sentence, "Volvitur
Euryalus leto," after which the simile of the drooping flower is absurd. Of
criticism, the chief use of which is to warn all sensible men from such
business, the following abstract of Diderot's notes on the passage, given
in the 'Saturday Review' for April 29th, 1871, is worth preserving. (Was
the French critic really not aware that Homer _had_ written the lines his
own way?)

"Diderot illustrates his theory of poetical hieroglyphs by no quotations,
but we can show the manner of his minute and sometimes fanciful criticism
by repeating his analysis of the passage of Virgil wherein the death of
Euryalus is described:--

'Pulchrosque per artus
It cruor, inque humeros cervix collapsa recumbit;
Purpureus veluti cum flos succisus aratro
Languescit moriens; lassove papavera collo
Demisere caput, pluvia cum forte gravantur.'

"The sound of 'It cruor,' according to Diderot, suggests the image of a jet
of blood; 'cervix collapsa recumbit,' the fall of a dying man's head upon
his shoulder; 'succisus' imitates the use of a cutting scythe (not plough);
'demisere' is as soft as the eye of a flower; 'gravantur,' on the other
hand, has all the weight of a calyx, filled with rain; 'collapsa' marks an
effort and a fall, and similar double duty is performed by 'papavera,' the
first two syllables symbolizing the poppy upright, the last two the poppy
bent. While thus pursuing his minute investigations, Diderot can scarcely
help laughing at himself, and candidly owns that he is open to the
suspicion of discovering in the poem beauties which have no existence. He
therefore qualifies his eulogy by pointing out two faults in the passage.
'Gravantur,' notwithstanding the praise it has received, is a little too
heavy for the light head of a poppy, even when filled with water. As for
'aratro,' coming as it does after the hiss of 'succisus,' it is altogether
abominable. Had Homer written the lines, he would have ended with some
hieroglyph, which would have continued the hiss or described the fall of a
flower. To the hiss of 'succisus' Diderot is warmly attached. Not by
mistake, but in order to justify