Not only can inspire, but pay. 
  Then make this new Apollo sit
Sole patron, judge, and god of wit. 
“How from his altitude he stoops
To raise up Virtue when she droops;
On Learning how his bounty flows,
And with what justice he bestows;
Fair Isis, and ye banks of Cam! 
Be witness if I tell a flam,
What prodigies in arts we drain,
From both your streams, in George’s reign. 
As from the flowery bed of Nile”—­
But here’s enough to show your style. 
Broad innuendoes, such as this,
If well applied, can hardly miss: 
For, when you bring your song in print,
He’ll get it read, and take the hint;
(It must be read before ’tis warbled,
The paper gilt and cover marbled.)
And will be so much more your debtor,
Because he never knew a letter. 
And, as he hears his wit and sense
(To which he never made pretence)
Set out in hyperbolic strains,
A guinea shall reward your pains;
For patrons never pay so well,
As when they scarce have learn’d to spell. 
Next call him Neptune:  with his trident
He rules the sea:  you see him ride in’t;
And, if provoked, he soundly firks his
Rebellious waves with rods, like Xerxes. 
He would have seized the Spanish plate,
Had not the fleet gone out too late;
And in their very ports besiege them,
But that he would not disoblige them;
And make the rascals pay him dearly
For those affronts they give him yearly. 
  ’Tis not denied, that, when we write,
Our ink is black, our paper white: 
And, when we scrawl our paper o’er,
We blacken what was white before: 
I think this practice only fit
For dealers in satiric wit. 
But you some white-lead ink must get
And write on paper black as jet;
Your interest lies to learn the knack
Of whitening what before was black. 
  Thus your encomium, to be strong,
Must be applied directly wrong. 
A tyrant for his mercy praise,
And crown a royal dunce with bays: 
A squinting monkey load with charms,
And paint a coward fierce in arms. 
Is he to avarice inclined? 
Extol him for his generous mind: 
And, when we starve for want of corn,
Come out with Amalthea’s horn:[3]
For all experience this evinces
The only art of pleasing princes: 
For princes’ love you should descant
On virtues which they know they want. 
One compliment I had forgot,
But songsters must omit it not;
I freely grant the thought is old: 
Why, then, your hero must be told,
In him such virtues lie inherent,
To qualify him God’s vicegerent;
That with no title to inherit,
He must have been a king by merit. 
Yet, be the fancy old or new,
Tis partly false, and partly true: 
And, take it right, it means no more
Than George and William claim’d before. 
  Should some obscure inferior fellow,
Like Julius, or the youth of Pella,[4]
When all your list of Gods is out,