Note 468 — THE MEDAL. A SATIRE AGAINST SEDITION.
Reading edition
The line is this:
Thou leap'st o'er all eternal truths in thy pindaric way.
It seems to be alluded to by Hickeringell in the following lines on Dryden's challenge to the Whig poets, in his preliminary epistle:
If Whigs be silent, then the Tory says, They're silenced, cannot answer Mr Bayes, The poet laureat; and if we write, He swears we learn of him how to indite; Nay, he's so charitable, we so poor, He bids us take, and welcome, of his store; And lest our verses happen to want feet, He frankly proffers his; and 'tis most meet We should, in charity, accept his proffer now, For his, like that, has more than should by two.
The same circumstance is noticed by Tom Brown, who says, it is the longest line in Christendom, except one, which went round some old hangings, representing the history of Pharoah and Moses, and measured forty-six good feet of metre, running thus:
Why, was he not a rascal? Who refused to suffer the children of Israel to go into the wilderness, with their wives and families, to eat the pascal.
I notice this buffoonery, because it is common to ascribe this strange Alexandrine to the Rev. Zachary Boyd, whose scriptural poems are preserved in the University of Glasgow.